About Us
The Joan and Bill Hank Center
for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage
About | Staff | Board
The Joan and Bill Hank Center, one of Loyola's five Centers of Excellence, is a venue for faculty, students, and staff to learn about, and investigate, Roman Catholic thought and its links to all academic disciplines. With its strong emphasis on scholarly research and interdisciplinary engagement, The Hank Center is a productive space where the fruits of scholarship and inquiry can be encountered, discussed, and shared.
The Center was founded in 2006 aiming to preserve and foster the Catholic intellectual heritage not only at Loyola University Chicago, but also in the broader community. On April 24, 2007, Loyola University Chicago renamed this Center of Excellence in honor of two generous friends and benefactors—Joan Los (BS'54) and Bill Hank.
The Center offers a host of programs, initiatives, and grants aimed at helping our community to connect with, research, and communicate the Catholic intellectual heritage in cross disciplinary and cross-cultural ways-- and always under the mantle of faith, justice, and reason.
- Connecting to Roman Catholic thought
The CCIH Reading Groups offer faculty the opportunity to read and discuss a classic text in the Catholic intellectual tradition with their peers from across the disciplines and around the university. - Researching Roman Catholic thought
Faculty research projects for both individuals and groups concerned with or connected to Catholic intellectual heritage are funded by the Center. The typical goal is a published text, but it can also include an organized conference or team-taught course. - Communicating Roman Catholic thought
The Cardinal Newman Lecture Series provides an opportunity, each spring, for a noted scholar who has converted to Catholicism to offer faculty and students a reflection on how their identification with the Catholic Church and the Catholic intellectual tradition influences and impacts their own professional research and scholarship.
The Joan and Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage stewards the Jesuit principle of finding God in all things, which is at the core of the mission of Loyola University Chicago. At the Center, the rich and variant lines of the Catholic intellectual tradition are explored, communicated, and renewed.
Get to know our Staff:
Michael Patrick Murphy, PhD
Title/s: Director, Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage and
Senior Lecturer
OFFICE #: Cuneo Hall 430
Phone: 773.508.3822
Email: mmurphy23@luc.edu
CV Link: Michael P. Murphy CV
About
Michael Murphy is Director of Loyola’s Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage. He earned his doctorate in Theology, Literature, and Philosophy from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, an MA in English from San Francisco State University, and undergraduate degrees in English and Great Books from the University of San Francisco. His research interests are in Theology and Literature, Sacramental Theology, Systematic Theology, and the socio-political cultures of Catholicism-- but he also writes about issues in eco-theology, media ecologies, and social ethics. Dr. Murphy, a Senior Lecturer in the Theology Department, is a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow. His first book, A Theology of Criticism (Oxford), was named a "Distinguished Publication" in 2008 by the American Academy of Religion. His current scholarly project is a monograph, The Humane Realists: Catholic Fiction, Poetry, and Film 1965 - 2025.
Degrees
A doctorate in Theology, Literature, and Philosophy from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, an MA in English from San Francisco State University, and undergraduate degrees in English and Great Books from the University of San Francisco
Program Areas
Catholic Studies; Catholic Intellectual Tradition; Catholic Social Teaching and Tradition; Jesuit/Ignatian Traditions
Research Interests
Mike’s work explores the idea that the Catholic intellectual tradition is not only an essential resource for content, but is also one with a deeply ingrained interdisciplinary method as well. With this theoretical framework in mind, Mike engages the following fields and subfields as projects in constructive, integral theology:
Theological Aesthetics/Hans Urs von Balthasar
The Catholic Literary Tradition
The Literary and Political Cultures of Catholicism
Religion and Mimetic Theory
Digital Cultures/New Media Ecologies
Systematic Theology (Christology, Trinitarian Theology)
Sacramental Theology
Ressourcement Theology
Christian Spirituality
Awards
Finalist, Ignatius of Loyola Award, LUC Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy, 2016
Finalist, Kolvenbach Award, LUC Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy, 2015
Alpha Sigma Nu, Centenary Faculty Inductee, Loyola University Chicago, 2014-2015
Loyola University Chicago USGA Teaching Award: Faculty Member of the Year, 2013-2014
Loyola University Chicago Student Diversity and Multicultural Affairs Diversity Award, 2013- 2014
CCIH Fellowship: $6,000 Research Grant for Vatican II at 50
USF Distinguished Adjunct Nominee, 2011 and 2012
2011 American Academy of Religion Distinguished Book: 2008
Selected Publications
“The Tinderization of Theology" in Theological Discourses on Social Media, Christopher B. Barnett, Clark J. Elliston, and Trevor B. Williams, eds. In preparation; forthcoming from Routledge in 2025.
"Panem et Circenses: Michel Houellebecq, Submission, and the Liturgies of Spiritual Exhaustion" in The Call of Literature (Forthcoming from Routledge in 2024)
“Cultivating Catholic Studies and Charism through Co-Curricular Programs: The Annual John Courtney Murray, S.J., Forum @LUC,” in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, McKenzie and Sherry, eds., Volume 26, Number 5 (August, 2023).
“A look inside the Vatican meeting that brought Pope Francis and Martin Scorsese together,” America Magazine, 6/8/2023.
“Apocalypse Now? Yes, Please: Notes on Navigating the Digital Revolution,” in Nexus: Conversations on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Vukov and Burns, eds. Volume 2 (May, 2023).
“You are What You Eat: St. Ignatius and Doing Advent Right,” in Heroes of the Ignatian Tradition, The Jesuit Conference, 11/30/2022
“Response: Innovate in Tradition,” Dialogue on Mission Drift in Catholic Higher Education in Conversations in Jesuit Higher Education, 2/9/2022
“Childhood and the Terrain of Transformation: A Tale of Two O’ Connors” in Living Life to the Full: Literature and a Catholic Philosophy of Life, David Torevell, ed., Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2021.
“Houellebecq's Cautionary Tale About Liturgy Gone Awry,” in Church Life Journal, University of Notre Dame, 6/20/2021
Joe Vukov, PhD
Associate Director, The Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage
Associate Professorr, Department of Philosophy
Joe Vukov is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at Loyola University Chicago. He is also Associate Director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola, and an Affiliate Faculty Member in Catholic Studies and Psychology. Nationally, Vukov also serves as the Vice President of Philosopher’s in Jesuit Education. Vukov received his PhD from Fordham University, and also holds Certificates in Bioethics and Medical Humanities (Montefiore-Einstein), Health Care Ethics (Fordham), an MA in Humanities (University of Chicago), and BAs in Philosophy and English Literature and Writing (Bethel University). Vukov's research explores questions at the intersection of ethics, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind, and at the intersection of science and religion. In 2022, he published Navigating Faith and Science, and in 2023, he published The Perils of Perfection. In 2020, he was named a Sujack Master Teacher and in 2019, was awarded the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching Freshmen.
Research Interests
Selected Publications
Katie Arnold
Office Manager
OFFICE #: Cuneo Hall 434
Phone: 773.508.6088
Email: karnold6@luc.edu
Katie Arnold is the Office Manager at the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage. She has a Bachelors Degree in Public Relations and History from Purdue University and joins the Center from the field of public history. As a museum professional, Katie has experience working in a range of positions including most recently as a Project Manager of Exhibitions at the Field Museum of Natural History. She was also a Producer and Archival Researcher at a historical documentary production company, where she earned a Mid-Atlantic EMMY Award for her work on a documentary about female abolitionists in the mid-19th century.
Katie is currently serving as a leader for the Young Adult Ministry at St. Mary of the Lake and Our Lady of Lourdes. As a lifelong Catholic, she continues to dedicate herself to her own spiritual growth and seeks to create new opportunities for others to learn, experience and grow in the faith.
Naomi Fisher, PhD
Director of Catholic Studies
Naomi Fisher is Assistant Professor of Philosophy. Prior to coming to Loyola in 2018, she taught at Clark University in Massachusetts. She earned her Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame in 2016, and prior to that earned her M.S. in physics from UC Davis.
Her research focuses on Kant and German Idealism and Romanticism, specifically the relationship between nature, freedom, and rationality in Kant’s Critical philosophy and in Friedrich Schelling’s philosophy of nature. She also has interests in the broader history of philosophy, particularly the 19th century, the philosophy of science, and ethics.
Degrees
PhD, University of Notre Dame
MA, University of Notre Dame
MS, University of California - Davis
BS, Biola University
Research Interests
Kant and German Idealism
Selected Publications
"Organisms and the Form of Freedom in Kant’s Third Critique" (forthcoming in European Journal of Philosophy).
"Freedom as Productivity in Schelling’s Philosophy of Nature" in Schelling's Philosophy: Freedom, Nature and Systematicity, ed. G. Anthony Bruno (forthcoming with Oxford University Press).
"The Epistemology of Schelling’s Philosophy of Nature" in History of Philosophy Quarterly 34:3 pp. 271-290 (July 2017).
"Kant On Animal Minds" in Ergo 4:15, pp. 441-462 (2017).
"Natural and Ethical Normativity" in The Southern Journal of Philosophy 54:4, pp. 417-439 (December 2016).
Julian Sieber
Graduate Student Assistant
Julian Sieber is a Graduate Student Assistant at the Hank Center. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in New Testament & Early Christianity at Loyola University Chicago. His research interests include the literary and social backgrounds of the Bible at the intersections of gender, indigeneity, and banqueting practices, as well as Catholic biblical reception histories. He holds an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School and a B.A. (Media & Information) from Curtin University, Western Australia.
Mary Countryman
Undergraduate Student Worker
Mary Countryman is an undergraduate in her third year, studying Human Resource Management and Information Systems in the Quinlan School of Business. She is pursuing a Catholic Studies minor and is involved in both the Catholic Student Club and the Pro-Life Club on campus.
Vincent DeStazio
Undergraduate Student Worker
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Vincent DeStazio is an undergraduate in his second year at Loyola. He is a member of the Interdisciplinary Honors Program, studying mathematics with a minor in Middle East & Islamic World Studies. Vincent is actively involved in Loyola's Catholic community and Campus Ministry.
ADVISORY BOARD
Colby Dickinson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Theology
Loyola University Chicago
The Hon. Thomas M. Donnelly, J.D.
Associate Judge, Circuit Court of Cook County
Part-Time Faculty, School of Law
Loyola University Chicago
D. Scott Hendrickson, S.J., DPhil
Associate Provost for Global and Community Engagement
Associate Professor, Department of Modern Languages and Literature
Loyola University Chicago
M. Therese Lysaught, Ph.D.
Professor and Director of Graduate Program in Healthcare Mission Leadership
Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics & Healthcare Leadership
Loyola University Chicago
Michelle Nickerson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of History
Loyola University Chicago
Seungho Moon, Ed.D.
Professor of Teaching and Learning, School of Education
Loyola University Chicago
Lorraine A. Ozar, Ph.D.
Clinical Associate Professor and Andrew M. Greeley Endowed Chair in Catholic Education
Loyola University Chicago
Michael J. Schuck, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Theology
Founding Director, The Joan and Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage
Loyola Univeristy Chicago
