Faculty & Staff Directory
Mara Brecht, PhD
Title/s: Associate Professor of Systematic Theology
Assistant Chairperson
Office #: Crown Center 305
Email: mbrecht@luc.edu
CV Link: Mara_Brecht_CV
About
My research interests all circulate around a basic question: What does it mean to be formed as a Christian in a world of difference? I've explored this question in relation to interreligious dialogue, attending to how Christian theological self-understanding is shaped in response religious diversity, and I'm currently working on a constructive project that links this question specifically to racialized embodiment and identity. As a teacher, I think a lot about helping diverse students encounter theology and especially the Catholic intellectual tradition and find something meaningful for meeting the challenges of their day-to-day lives.
Degrees
Ph.D. Fordham University (2011)
M.Phil. Fordham University (2008)
M.T.S. Harvard Divinity School (2006)
B.A. Oberlin College (2004)
Program Areas
Systematics
Research Interests
Race, Theology, and Whiteness; Religious Diversity and Theologies of Religious Pluralism; Embodiment as a Theological Resource and Theme; Friendship as Theological Resource and Theme; Christian Formation in Contexts of Difference; Pedagogy, Teaching and Learning; Mission, Identity, and Catholic Higher Education
Awards
Monika Hellwig Award for Excellence in Teaching 2020, College Theology Society
Selected Publications
“Comparative Theology: Present Experience, Remembered Pasts, Imagined Futures,” Catholic Theological Society of America Proceedings (May 2022) *co-authored with Reid B. Locklin and Stephanie Wong, forthcoming in
“A Consideration of Teaching, Friendship, and Boundaries in Catholic Higher Education,” Journal of Moral Theology, Symposium on Paul J. Wadell (January 2021). *coauthored with Bridget Burke Ravizza
“A Widened Angle of Vision: Catholic Theology, Embodied Practices, and Lived Faiths,” Journal of Global Catholicism 5: 1 (2021): 20–29.
“Embodied Transactions” in Revelation and Hermeneutics, edited by Christiaan Jacobs-Vandegeer and Jean-Luc Marion (Springer: Contributions to Hermeneutics Series, 2020).
“See-Judge-… Act?: The Place of Action in the Antiracist Catholic Theological Classroom,” Religious Education 113:3 (2019): 202–213.
“Charismatic Circularity: Lay Faculty, Practices of Transmission, and Possibilities for Renewal,” Journal for Catholic Higher Education 38: 2 (2019): 99–120
