Patricia Z Beckman,
Assistant Professor of Religion
Trish Beckman received her MA and PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her research and teaching focus on the history of Christianity with particular emphasis on the diversities of Christian thought and practice. She's drawn especially to the evocative vernacular texts of medieval lay women. She serves on the Council of the American Society of Church History. Before coming to St Olaf she was the historian of Christianity for the Dept. of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she was also a religious literacy team member on the Ford Foundation Difficult Dialogues project and a senior fellow in the Center for Religion, the Professions & the Public. She is an advocate for the public understanding, discussion, and debate of all things religious.
Recent publications include "The Power of Books and the Practice of Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century: Heinrich of Nördlingen and Margaret Ebner with Mechthild's Flowing Light of the Godhead" Church History. Studies in Christianity and Culture (March 2007);"Swimming in the Trinity. Mechthild of Magdeburg's Mystical Play" Spiritus. A Journal of Christian Spirituality (Spring 2004); "Performance" and co-editor The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism (forthcoming).
Office:
Boe Chapel 102A
E-mail:
beckman@stolaf.edu
