Faculty

Kathleen Sprows Cummings

Assistant Professor

Research Fields:  Women and American Religion, U.S. Catholicism, Gilded Age and Progressive Era 

Profile:  Kathleen Sprows Cummings holds a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Notre Dame. She joined the Notre Dame faculty in 2001 as the Associate Director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism and became a member of the American Studies Department in 2008.  She holds concurrent appointments in the Departments of History and Theology. 

Publications: Cummings’ first book, New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era, will be published by University of North Carolina Press in January 2009. Other recent publications include “The ‘New Woman’ at the ‘University’: Gender and American Catholic Identity in the Progressive Era,” which appears in The Religious History of American Women: Reimagining the Past, edited by Catherine A. Brekus (University of North Carolina, 2007).  She is a regular contributor to Commonweal, America, and American Catholic Studies.

At present Cummings is working on a book-length study of women and American Catholicism. She is also writing an essay about teaching gender and American Catholic studies, which will appear in Passing on the Faith, Passing on the Church, edited by Margaret McGuinness and James T. Fisher, and under contract with Fordham University Press. 

Professional Activities: In April 2008 Cummings delivered the Catholic Daughters of the Americas Lecture at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. She will also be the featured speaker at a symposium on Women, Gender, and Religion held at Creighton University in November 2008.

Teaching Interests:  Cummings regularly teaches a range of courses that focus on American gender and religious history. Recently she has offered a course on the American Catholic Experience and on Gender and American Catholic Studies. She is also developing a course on Catholics in American Popular Culture.  

Contact Information
Office:1141 Flanner Hall
Phone: (574) 631-8749
Email:kathleen.s.cummings.23@nd.edu