Thomas F. Rzeznik Assistant Professor
Address: 333 Fahy
Phone: (973) 275-2204
E-mail: rzeznith@shu.edu Thomas Rzeznik joined the history department in 2006. He specializes in American religious history, with a particular interest in the history of the Catholic community and the development of Catholic institutions in the United States. His courses are regularly cross-listed with the Catholic Studies Program at Seton Hall. He also enjoys teaching classes on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, urban history, and environmental history.
His dissertation, Spiritual Capital: Religion, Wealth, and Social Status in Industrial Era Philadelphia, examines church responses to affluence and explores the influence wealthy individuals had within their local churches and broader denominations.
Education:
- Ph.D., University of Notre Dame 2006
- M.A., University of Notre Dame 2003
- B.A., Fordham University 2000
Courses at Seton Hall:
- HIST 1301, US History I
- HIST 1302, US History II
- HIST 3387/CAST 2387, The Catholic Church in the US Signature II: Christianity and Culture in Dialogue
- HIST XXXX: American Environmental History (new course; no number yet)
Awards, grants and fellowships:
- Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundation, three-year, full-tuition fellowship with stipend, 2003-2006.
- Finalist, Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Lilly Fellows Program in the Humanities and the Arts, Valparaiso University, 2006.
- Haverford College Quaker Collections, Gest Research Fellowship, July 2004.
Representative publications:
“Putting the Diocese at the Center of Things, 1910-1945” in The History of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, ed. David Contosta, (forthcoming 2008)
