Andrea J. Dickens

Assistant Professor of Church History
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• Teaching and Research

  Andrea’s teaching and research interests include medieval theology and church history; medieval women’s history; mysticism; monastic traditions; vernacular theology and literature; religion and the arts; Augustine and Augustinianisms; and Dante.

• Education

  B.A. in English, University of Virginia (1994)

  M.A.R. in History of Christianity and Philosophy of Religion,
  Yale Divinity School (1998)

  Ph.D. in Religious Studies, University of Virginia (2005). Her dissertation is entitled Unus Spiritus Cum Deo: Six Medieval Cistercian Christologies.

• Professional

  Presented various papers on the religious traditions of the Middle Ages to scholarly societies

  Taught courses in Religion and Art, Modern American Religious History, Information Technology and Digital Media, and Women and Islam

  Member of the:
  
  American Academy of Religion

  American Historical Association

  Medieval Academy of America

  Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association

  Grants and Awards:
  
  2007 – 2008 Lilly Theological Research Grant

  2007 – 2008 Wabash Teaching and Learning
  Workshop participant

• Publications

  Click on the thumbnail to view an enlarged photo
  of the bookcover.

  Book(s):
  
  

  

  The Female Mystic: Great Women Thinkers of the Middle Ages. I.B. Tauris, 2009.
  
  publisher notes

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  History of Monasticism: The Western Tradition. London and NY: I.B. Tauris (under contract).

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  Article(s):
  
  “Cluny” in The Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage. Leiden: Brill, 2008 (forthcoming).

  “Soul” and “Poetry,” The Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions, ed. Yudit Greenberg. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007.

  Various articles including “Adam of Perseigne,” “Amadeus of Lausanne,” “Eckhardt,” “Gilbert of Hoyland,” “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite,” “School of Chartres,” “William of Auxerre,” and others. The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Robert E. Bjork. Oxford and NY: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  “A God Who Hides, A God Who Seeks: Providence and
  God’s Desire in Augustine’s Confessions,” Journal of Theology,
  summer 2006.

  Review(s):
  
  Review of Harnessing Innovative Technology in Higher Education, by Kathleen King and Joan Griggs, Teaching Theology and Religion (forthcoming).

  Review of Aelred of Rievaulx: Pursuing Perfect Happiness,
  by John R. Sommerfeldt, Journal of the American Academy
  of Religion.

  Paper(s):
  
  “Simone Weil on the Erotics of Work and Affliction,” at PAMLA (Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association), UC Riverside (November 2006)

  “Augustine’s Image of the Ascension: Medieval Monastic Receptions” at Annual Meeting of the American Academy
  of Religion (November 2005)

  “Genre and Theology in Mediaeval Mysticism: Mechtilde
  of Hackeborn's Book of Ghostleye Grace” at SECSOR
  (South-East) Regional Meeting of the American Academy
  of Religion (March 2004)

  “Pilgrim People: Locus and the Body in Dante’s Purgatorio”, at PAMLA (Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association), Scripps College (November 2003)

  “Can Illumination be Auditory? The Augustinian Legacy in William of St- Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux” at Illumination Conference, Oxford University (July 2002)

  Respondent to Beth Felker Jones, Duke University “Matter
  of Order: Augustinian Theology of the Body” at UVA/Duke Colloquium on Teaching Christian Thought (April 2002)

  “The Spiritual Senses in the Spiritual Exercises: The Augustinian Influences on Gertrud of Helfta” at SECSOR (South-East) Regional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion
  (March 2002)

  “Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe: Visiting the Spiritual and Earthly Cities” at Art and the City, University of Virginia Art History Graduate Student Conference (November 2000)

• Personal Life

  Andrea is a published poet and visual artist (media are functional ceramics and stained glass). She is training to hike El Camino de Santiago de Compostela.