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The Certificate Program In American Catholic Studies
Overview
The Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies (CACS) offers an honors undergraduate certificate program in American Catholic Studies. American Catholic Studies is an interdisciplinary undergraduate certificate program which trains academically talented undergraduates, as lay and clerical Catholic leaders of the future, in the rich multi-disciplinary reality of Catholic thought.
The Curran Center staff works with each individual student to craft a course of study suited to his or her academic and vocational interests and, in conjunction with the Campion Center, works closely with potential candidates for prestigious fellowships to prepare qualified students for post-baccalaureate scholarships and fellowships.
In addition to their interdisciplinary study of American Catholic traditions, all students are expected to participate in the Ignatian Discernment Seminar (see below), six hours of community service each week, and various communal events including Communitas discussion dinners. Such programming is designed to foster a community of scholars who seek to combine cultivation of their academic talents with a life of engagement with the University community and the broader Church and world beyond.
Program Description
The six-course certificate in American Catholic Studies offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of American Catholic culture, history and theology. This interdisciplinary study is achieved through a sequence of required and elective courses offered in the art history, English, history, Latin American and Latino studies, music, philosophy, political science, sociology and anthropology, and theology departments of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the College of Business Administration.
The CACS Certificate Program offers undergraduates an opportunity to study the complex reality of American Catholic culture from a rigorously interdisciplinary standpoint, in the process helping students to hone their critical and analytical skills in analyzing often diverse ideological, racial and ethnic, socio-economic, and geographical loyalties all claiming to be genuinely "American" and "Catholic."
Admission to the CACS program is selective, a 3.5 cumulative grade point average on a 4.0 scale, and an interview with one of the program directors being required for admission. All students are awarded annual tuition scholarships of $1000 and are designated as "Scholars in Catholic Studies: An Honors Certificate at Fordham" on their official transcripts.
Program Requirements
The certificate in American Catholic studies is available at Fordham College at Rose Hill, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and the College of Business Administration.
The certificate program is comprised of six courses: a year-long, two-semester seminar required of all students, and four "basket" courses chosen from courses offered by the CACS concentration program and from existing courses offered by other university departments and programs: one course in art history, music, or English; one course in history or Latin American and Latino studies; one course in philosophy or sociology; and one course in theology.
In addition to the six courses, all concentrators are expected to participate in the one-credit Ignatian Discernment Seminar (below) and to contribute up to six hours every week to a community service project in our neighborhood through a variety of programs sponsored by the Community Service Office.
Program Activities
Ignatian Discernment Seminar. All concentrators are required to participate in the Ignatian Discernment Seminar. These monthly seminars, inspired in structure by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, have two aims: to encourage students to reflect deeply and critically on the challenges that confront the contemporary world, and to ask them to consider how they might deploy their intellectual abilities and other talents in the service of a more just and humane society. In this process, students learn how to communicate effectively, efficiently, and memorably their views on the multifaceted global issues of our time. The goal is that concentrators will emerge from these seminars not only more aware of the needs of the world but also more capable of contributing to their resolution. Recent topics have included the shortage and unequal distribution of economic resources, public apathy in an age of renewed nuclear proliferation, and strategies for communicating clearly about highly complex topics. In the second semester of their junior year, concentrators will have the opportunity to begin to prepare applications for such nationally and internationally prestigious fellowships as the Rhodes, Marshall, Gates, and Jack Kent Cooke scholarships. Those concentrators who elect to do so will work closely with the Curran Center's Associate Director of Prestigious Fellowships and Fordham’s St. Edmund Campion Institute as they proceed through the application process.
Catholic Literature and Art. A growing component of the program is an emphasis on Catholic literature and art. In recent years, the Curran Center has added five new courses to the Catholic Studies offerings in literature, including American Catholic Poetry, American Catholic Women Writers, The Writing Irish: The Celtic-Catholic Literary Imagination, Ethnic & Catholic Literature: Writing the American Dream, and Labor, Leisure and God: Towards a Catholic Work Ethic. The aim of the English department faculty who teach these courses is to make Fordham students more fully aware of the rich tradition of artistic creation that is such an important part of the Church’s cultural history and of the ongoing contributions of intentionally Catholic artists to American literature and the arts. While the focus in the classroom is on the literary tradition, the professor attempts to connect the written word with Catholic artists’ contributions to the visual arts, film and dramatic presentation, and music as well.
Additional Programming
The American Catholic Studies program offers its students a range of additional opportunities. Among these are the following:
Lectures & Symposia: The Center hosts lectures, symposia, and readings each semester. These often feature speakers, scholars and artists of national and international reputation.
Communitas Discussion Dinners: Three times each semester, the Curran Center convenes a discussion dinner hosted by an invited speaker who brings to the table expertise in a topic of interest to CACS students and faculty.
Christian Life Community: Jesuit scholastics affiliated with the Center provide opportunities which include a Christian Life Community, a film discussion group, visits to Catholic parishes in New York, and weekly reflections on the readings of the Sunday liturgy.
Vocational Counseling: Assistance with planning of students’ academic and professional career is also available for concentrators. This ranges from advising to preparation for post-baccalaureate fellowship application.
Receptions, Networking, and Conviviality: To aid its students in their educational and career goals, the Center offers receptions to bring students into contact with scholarship donors as well as alumni currently working in the academic, legal, business, and not-for-profit fields.
Courses
AMRU 3100-Ignatian Discernment Seminar
AMRU 3130-Faith In U.S. Politics
AMRU 3200 – American and Catholic
AMRU 3250-American Catholic Novels
AMRU 3251-Labor, Leisure and God
AMRU 3320-The Writing Irish
AMRU 3340-Catholicism & Democracy
AMRU 3350-American Catholic Poetry |
AMRU 3355-American Catholic Novel
AMRU 3359-American Catholic Women Writers
AMRU 3360 – Ethnic & Catholic Literature
AMRU 3450-The Catholic Metropolis
AMRU 3451 -Niebuhr in America
AMRU 3975-Catholics Across Cultures
AMRU 3981-Catholic Studies Seminar I
AMRU 3982-Catholic Studies Seminar II |
Course Descriptions
AMRU 3100-IGNATIAN DISCERNMENT (1 credit)
This seminar serves as a point of entry to the American Catholic Studies certificate and an opportunity to reflect on pressing global challenges. Taken in the spring of the sophomore year, the seminar invites students to explore how to deploy their talents in the service of a more just and humane society. In this process, students learn to communicate effectively and memorably about the multifaceted global issues of our time.
AMRU 3130-FAITH IN U.S. POLITICS (4 credits)
This course will examine the effects of religion on contemporary American politics. How does religion shape the political system? In what ways should religious considerations influence public policy? How does religion affect voting decisions? Does faith have an impact on the political behavior of elected officials? Special attention will be paid to the role of religion in recent presidential elections and to the influence exerted by the American Catholic Church.
AMRU 3200 – AMERICAN AND CATHOLIC (4 credits)
This course examines the contributions of various Catholic figures and movements from the end of the 19th Century to the start of the 21st. How did the various Catholic generations of the past 110 years understand themselves as Americans and Catholics? And how did subsequent generations change that understanding? This course will give particular emphasis to how younger generations initiated or prompted change, with an eye to discovering how youth culture today might be shaping the future of American Catholic identity.
AMRU 3250-CONTEMPORARY CATHOLIC FICTION (4 credits)
This course will examine several major Catholic writers of the 20th century (Graham Greene, Flannery O'Connor, Mary Gordon, J.F. Powers and others). This course will examine Catholic themes and issues in their writings.
AMRU 3251-LABOR, LEISURE AND GOD (4 credits)
One of the many things we have lost in becoming what scholar Eugene McCarraher describes as "prisoners of the free market" is a sense of the sacredness of labor and of leisure. Through examination of a variety of philosophical, theological, and aesthetic concepts and representations of work and play, including those expressed by such writers as Max Weber, Josef Piper, Dorothy Day, Theodore Dreiser, Andre Dubus, Pope Leo XIII, and John Paul II, we will examine the ways in which these ideas have shaped the culture and practice of labor in America. American Catholics have been active participants in the on-going attempt to define the meaning and value of labor and leisure as workers, as theorists, and as activists. These texts will enable us to reflect on this history and will help us to formulate a working definition of what might be termed an American Catholic Work Ethic.
AMRU 3320-THE WRITING IRISH (4 credits)
This course will explore the influence of Catholicism on the development of Irish and Irish-American Literature from the early 20th century to the present. Featuring Irish- and American-born writers of Irish ancestry, the course will focus on the work of writes such as James Joyce, Patrick Kavanaugh, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Mebh McGuckian, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Kennedy, Elizabeth Cullinan, Frank O’Hara, Alice McDermott and Michael Donaghy. Through selected historical and critical readings, we will attempt to create a descriptive narrative of what happens when Irish writers wrestle with Catholic identity in the context of 20th-century political and economic struggle, both in Ireland and in America, and a growing culture of unbelief.
AMRU 3340-CATHOLICISM & DEMOCRACY (4 credits)
This course will examine the relationship between Catholicism and democracy, placing particular stress on their relevance to contemporary American public life. In this context, Catholicism will be understood not only as a religious institution, but as the source of a tradition of communitarian social and political thought, while democracy will be understood not only as a form of government, but also as an ethos shaping American society. Authors and texts will include Alexis de Tocqueville, Orestes Brownson, Dorothy Day, John Courtney Murray, and relevant documents from Vatican II and the American hierarchy. The historic tension between Catholicism and democracy will be the subject of our conversation as will the possibilities for greater harmony between them. In particular, we will explore the possibility that Catholicism’s communitarian orientation might serve as a corrective to American individualism and consumerism, while democratic institutions and practices might have something to offer Catholicism. |
AMRU 3350-AMERICAN CATHOLIC POETRY (4 credits)
In this course, students will read a variety of poets whose work is grounded in the faith and culture of the Catholic Church in America. Our focus will be on Catholic poets writing in the U.S. during the 20th and 21st centuries and will include the work of Czeslaw Milosz, Adam Zagajewski, Denise Levertov, Thomas Merton, William Everson/Brother Antoninus, Franz Wright and Mary Karr. We will also read some poems by forerunners of these writers who exerted considerable influence on their work, such as John of the Cross and Gerard Manley Hopkins. As we engage the distinctive voice and subject matter of each poet, we will also try to determine what common qualities pervade the work. We will consider whether and how the work of the Catholic artist is marked by the sign of faith and will attempt to identify and characterize an essentially American Catholic vision that informs the art of these very different writers.
AMRU 3355-AMERICAN CATHOLIC NOVEL (4 credits)
The appearance and importance of faith in the work of American Catholic novelists, including J.F. Powers, Alice McDermott, Mary Gordon, Walter Miller, Ron Hansen and John Kennedy Toole.
AMRU 3359-AMERICAN CATHOLIC WOMEN WRITERS (4 credits)
This course will explore American Catholic Women's imaginative writing and the ways in which it reflects the broad range of attitudes and the complexity of feelings towards the Church American women have given voice to in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will read poetry, fiction, and memoir written by writers such as Dorothy Day, Mary McCarthy, Denise Levertov, Flannery O’Connor, Mary Karr, Alice McDermott and Mary Gordon. In addition, we will discuss the ways in which these writers have shaped the public discourse regarding the imaginative, religious and practical life of American Catholics.
AMRU 3360 – ETHNIC & CATHOLIC LITERATURE (4 credits)
This course engages the question of what it means to be both “ethnic” and “Catholic” in America and explores the ways in which these primary aspects of identity influence the work of writers affiliated with three of the most visible European Catholic ethnic groups that immigrated to the United States in the early 20th Century: the Irish, the Italians, and the Polish. Students will read memoir, fiction, and poetry by representative writers from each group, including the work of J.T. Farrell, Elizabeth Cullinan, Don Delillo, Helen Barolini, Czeslaw Milosz and Adam Zagajewski. Through selected historical and critical readings, we will attempt to create a descriptive narrative of what happens when writers wrestle with ethnic and Catholic identity in the context of 20th-century political and economic struggle in America, a predominantly White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant society, and a growing culture of unbelief.
AMRU 3450-THE CATHOLIC METROPOLIS (4 credits)
A history of Catholicism in the New York metropolitan area, focusing on sites of historic significance that inscribed a permanent Catholic presence and shaped an evolving urban culture. Students will explore and research architectural sites, locations of popular devotions, and streetscapes that reveal identities of parishes as urban village.
AMRU 3451 –NIEBUHR IN AMERICA (4 Credits)
Focusing on the influential work of liberal Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, the course will trace the development of major strands of modern American social and political thought and action including the Social Gospel, Catholic Worker and Settlement House movements—as reactions to nativism, consumerism, industrialism, individualism and greed. Niebuhr helped shape both contemporary Liberalism and Neo-Conservatism and was the architect of a “Christian realism,” which influenced American Catholic and Jewish thought. Niebuhr is widely known as the author of the “Serenity Prayer” [“God give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed….”]
AMRU 3975-CATHOLIC ACROSS CULTURES (4 credits)
A seminar exploring, comparing, and contrasting the Catholic fiction of disparate cultures, including Britain, Ireland, France, Brazil and Japan. Authors read will include Waugh, Greene, Percy, Bernanos, Endo and more. American authors will also be considered.
AMRU 3981-CATHOLIC STUDIES SEMINAR I (4 credits)
This course is the first half of a year-long interdisciplinary seminar,introducing students to the Catholic Studies concentration, using literary, theological and historical texts.
AMRU 3982-CATHOLIC STUDIES SEMINAR II (4 credits)
This course is the second half of a year-long interdisciplinary seminar,introducing students to the Catholic Studies concentration, using literary, theological and historical texts. |
Cross-Listed Courses From Other Departments
AA*G 3150-Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean
AA*P 3130-Racial and Ethnic Conflict
AA*U 3151-Caribbean Immigrants in the U.S.
AH*G 2255-Latin American Art
CM*U 3425-History of Film 1950-Present
EN*U 4089-Seminar Merton and O'Connor
EN*V 4129-Four Modern Catholic Writers
HSGA 5945-Race, Ethnicity and Americanism
HS*U 3260-Medieval Ireland to 1691
HS*G 1400-Introduction to Latin American History
HS*P 3755-Ethnic America
HS*U 3965-Colonial Latin America
HS*U 4800-New York People and Communities
LL*U 3314-Literature of the Encounter
ML*U 3015-Latin American/Latino Cultures
PH*V 3118-Issues of Life and Death
PH*U 3301-Problem of God
PH*U 3557-Confessions of Augustine
PH*U 3730-American Philosophy |
PH*U 3870-Critical Social Theory
PO*U 3221-Law on Religion and Morals
PO*U 3440-Gender Politics and the Christian Tradition
PO*U 4200-Seminar: American Public Policy
PO*U 4250-Seminar Urban Public Policy
RS*P 3995-Religion and American Self
RS*V 3455-Theologies of Liberation
RS*G 3412-Theology of Liberation
RS*P 3281-Religion in America
RS*P 3991-Catholics in American Culture
RS*P 3995-Religion and the American Self
RS*U 3983-Faith and Economic Systems
RS*U 4008-Religion and Ecology
SO*P 3427-Hispanics in USA
SO*P 3140-Old and New Minorities in the U.S.
SO*U 3102-Contemporary Social Issues and Policies
SO*U 3103-Questions of Conscience
TD*V 3300-Theater, Creativity and Values |
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