Charles Shea

 

Charles Michael Shea , Ph.D
Teaching Fellow
Core Curriculum

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Charles Michael Shea, Ph.D

Teaching Fellow
Core Curriculum

My doctoral work centered on the life and writings of John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement. My interests and publication trajectory have broadened recently to include the First Vatican Council, the rise of Neo-scholasticism, and nineteenth-century conceptions of authority, reason, and tradition. My current research focuses on creative relationships between ecclesiology, political revolution, and national identity. In particular, I am interested in the way in which theological education in the nineteenth century addressed relationships between Church, state, and scientific forms of authority, and in this way helped to forge a distinctively modern form of Roman Catholic identity.

My teaching has greatly benefited from this research. As Charles Taylor put it, we live today in "cross-pressured" spaces, and we must tack between alternate, and often conflicting worldviews. This is a disorienting space, but it is also one of encounter and creation. At Seton Hall I teach courses specifically devoted to faith, reason, human community, and discernment and transformation in liberal studies. In this way, the different aspects of my present work form a virtuous circle.