My scholarly work comes out of my expertise in theology, philosophy, and literature. The books, articles, and book reviews that follow reflect my engagement with the Western intellectual tradition, especially as it is reflected through Christianity.
Books
On Teaching Fairy Stories
In this book I argue for the role of fantastical literature in education. It concludes with the essay: “What Does Fairyland Require,” which brings together my decades of thinking about Fairyland.
The Father of Lights: A Theology of Beauty
This book explores the relationship between God and our experience of beauty in this world.
Bonaventure On the Holy Eucharist
This book presents the Eucharistic theology of one of the greatest of the Medieval theologians in a new English translation with facing-page Latin text.
Patristic and Medieval Atonement Theory
A guide to the dynamics of the Christian doctrine of atonement, together with an examination of 9 key figures and annotated bibliographies of primary and secondary literature.
Christ and Analogy: The Christocentric Metaphysics of Hans Urs von Balthasar
This monograph examines the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar to draw out his foundational metaphysical commitments and the role that Christ plays in grounding his system.
Articles
“Retrieving Contuition in Saint Bonaventure”
The notion of “contuition” is an important one in Bonaventure’s thought, but there is little scholarly consensus on what it means. This study dives deep into the history of scholarly interpretation of contuition, then goes back to
the original texts to shed light on this key concept.
Franciscan Studies 81 (2023), 5-31.
“Vast Beauty and Staggering Wonder: Putting the Childlike Spirit Back into Education”
The theme for this issue is beauty. My article focuses our attention on children as the privileged learners. I argue that children offer a better image of how learning ought to grounded: because “wonder and the search for beauty are
natural to childhood, and these are the engine of learning,” we ought to take our understanding of how learning should proceed from the experts: children.
The Consortium 2:1 (2023), 39-49.
“The Eucharistic Horizon of Bonaventure’s Christology: A Speculative Proposal”
This article expands upon elements of Bonaventure’s Christology to develop an account of the Eucharist inspired by Bonaventure’s understanding of the person of Christ. Originally a conference paper, it will appear later this year in a volume of proceedings of that conference.
Friar, Teacher, Minister, Bishop, Essays in Celebration of the 800th Centennial of the Seraphic Doctor. Timothy Johnson and Katherine Shelby, eds.
(St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2020), pp. 405-16.
“Body-less Vision: An Examination of the Incarnational Theology of Paradiso XXXI-XXXIII”
In this study I examine the nature of the resurrected body in Dante’s Commedia. As the last mystery of the human creature, the resurrection of the body is of no small import. Further, the body itself raises questions about the soul; these questions, as will be seen, have ramifications for Christ’s consubstantiality with the rest of humanity, and thus for understanding salvation itself.
Dante’s Volume from Alpha to Omega: Inscriptions on the Poet’s Universe. Christiane Purdy Moudarres and Carol Chiodo, eds.
(Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2021).
“Unlocking Bonaventure: The Collationes in Hexaëmeron as Interpretive Key”
This is a review essay of Jay Hammond’s translation of Bonaventure’s Collationes in Hexaemeron. I explain the importance of this text within the Bonaventurean corpus before assessing Hammond’s accomplishment with the translation.
The Thomist 83:2 (2019), pp. 272-294.
“The One and the Many in Bonaventure: Exemplarity Explained”
This article explores Bonaventure’s understanding of exemplarity, or the way in which Christ is the archetype of all creaturely being.
“Plato Among the Christians.” J. Warren Smith, ed. Special Issue, Religions 7:12 (2016).
“Theological Word and Literary Flesh: Bonaventurean Cosmology and the Cosmic Trilogy of C.S. Lewis.”
C.S. Lewis’ Cosmic Trilogy borrows extensively from Lewis’ training as a medievalist in the construction of its narrative world. This fact invites a close comparison of the relationship of Lewis’ fictional universe to medieval cosmology. This article attempts such a comparison, using as its medieval example St. Bonaventure, one of the greatest of the medieval Platonists. Bonaventure’s theologically-driven cosmology and Lewis’ fictional setting will be compared on three themes: 1) the use of the image of light, 2) imago dei theology, and 3) possible worlds. The result is an illumination of themes and commitments in the theology underlying the Cosmic Trilogy.
Literature and Theology 30:4 (2016), 426-38.
The Anglo-Florentine Renaissance: Art for the Early Tudors
This is volume 22 in Yale University Press’ Studies in British Art series. My contribution to this beautiful volume is a series of translations of primary source material dealing with Benedetto da Rovezano and Pietro Torrigiani.
The Anglo-Florentine Renaissance: Art for the Early Tudors. Studies in British Art vol. 22.
Book Reviews
“Bonaventure, the Body, and the Aesthetics of Salvation by Davies, Rachel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), xii + 187 pp.”
Modern Theology 37:3 (May, 2021), pp. 834-38.
Eleonore Stump, Atonement (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2018)
Journal of Analytic Theology 9 (Summer, 2021), pp. 743-48.