Martin Tomszak
STANDING
PhD Candidate
DISSERTATION DIRECTOR
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Early Church History; Catholic Social Teaching; Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day, and the Catholic Worker Movement; Post-Structuralist Eadical Lay Movements
PRESENTATIONS
“Coming Home Before the Street Lights Do: Chicago Artists, Method, and the Church’s Preferential Option for the Poor”
Presented at “Option for the Poor: Engaging the Social Tradition” the 2019 Catholic Social Tradition Conference — Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, March 2019.
“Failing to Beautify the Soul: St. Basil of Caesarea and the Relationship Between Apophatic Contemplation, Church Dogma, and Social Orthopraxy”
Presented at “Metaphor, Making, and Mysticism” the 2019 Annual Conference of the Mystical Theology Network — Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts, February 2019.
“Dorothy Day’s Long Loneliness and the Re-Examination of Genre: The Conversion Narrative as Pedagogical Tool”
Presented at the Conference of Catholic Conversion Narratives in Modernist Aesthetics — hosted jointly by KU Leuven and Loyola University Chicago — Chicago, IL, May 2018
“‘Grasses and Vegetables’: Ethical Eating in St. Basil of Caesarea”
Presented at the 2017 North American Patristic Society Conference – Chicago, IL, May 2017
“Dorothy Day’s Prophetic Witness: De-Criminalizing the Marginalized”
Presented at the Joan and Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage Conference “Revolution of the Heart: A Celebration of Dorothy Day” – Loyola University Chicago, Chicago IL, February 2017
“Overcoming a History of Silence: The Women of Tirol in the Sixteenth Century”
Presented at the Wheaton College History of Christianity Conference – Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL, September 2014
“Proper Pedagogy or Inconsistency? An Exploration of Origen’s Apokotastasis”
Presented at the Wheaton College Early Church Seminar – Wheaton College, Wheaton IL, December 2013
EDUCATION
Graduate:
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Integrative Studies in Ethics and Theology: Theology Concentration, In Progress, Loyola University Chicago
Master of Arts (M.A.), History of Christianity: Patristic Concentration, May, 2014, Wheaton College.
Undergraduate:
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), History, Latin American Focus, May 2012, Benedictine University. 4.0 GPA
COURSES TAUGHT
Adjunct Professor, Introduction to Theology
Loyola University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Fall 2019
Adjunct Professor, Theology of Justice
Benedictine University, Lisle, IL
Spring 2016
Adjunct Professor, Benedictine Traditions and Catholic Social Ethics
Benedictine University, Lisle, IL
Fall 2015
Adjunct Professor, Theology of Justice
Benedictine University, Lisle, IL
Spring 2015
Adjunct Professor, Benedictine Traditions and Catholic Social Ethics
Benedictine University, Lisle, IL
Fall 2014
Guest Lecturer, Women of the Radical Reformation
Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL
Fall 2013
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
North American Patristics Society, Mystical Theology Network, Political Theology Network
OTHER
I am currently the Vice Chair of Section 8 Chicago, a 501 (c) 3 that is dedicated to growing soccer culture in Chicago. Additionally, I am the director of the Fire for Food drive, an initiative which partners with the Greater Chicago Food Depository to combat food insecurity in our city. You can also find me tending bar at Metropolitan Brewing on the weekends.
