Katherine Dugan | Springfield College

Katherine Dugan

Katherine Dugan

CHAIR FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES / Associate Professor of Religion
Kate Dugan head shot
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., 2015
  • Master of Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass.
  • Bachelor of Arts, College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minn.

Katherine Dugan joined the Humanities Department in 2016. She studies American religions with a specialization in contemporary Catholicism in the United States. At Springfield College, Dugan teaches courses on world religions, religion in the United States, Catholicism, religion and sports, and Interfaith Studies. Her research interests are in religious experience, women in religion, and the intersection of religious practice and American culture. Her first book, Millennial Missionaries: How a Group of Young Catholics is Trying to Make Catholicism Cool (Oxford 2019) is an ethnographic study of young adults who commit two years evangelizing on college campuses in the United States. Her current project is on Catholics and natural family planning.

Twitter: @katherineadugan

Research Interests
  • Religion in the United States
  • American Catholicism
  • Religion and Gender
  • Interfaith Studies
Courses Taught
  • Religions of the World
  • Religion in America
  • Contemporary Catholicism
  • Religion and Sports
  • Religion, Health, and Healing
  • Interfaith Studies

Selected Works

Presentations

  • 2019 “Creating ‘Chicago’s Youth Ministry Model,’” American Catholic Historical Association, Chicago, IL, January 3-6.
  • 2018 “Big Catholic Families: Religious Norms, Idealized Families, and the Secular in Contemporary Catholic Families,” American Academy of Religion Meeting, Denver, CO, November 17-20.
  • 2018 “Catholics in the Long Wake of Humanae Vitae: NFP, ‘Life issues,’ and Polarized American Catholicism,” American Academy of Religion Meeting, Denver, CO, November 17-20.
  • 2018 “Natural Family Planning: Locating Catholic Women’s Authority,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San José, CA, November 14-18.
  • 2018 “Divine Mercy, the Cold War, and a Polish Pope: The International Context of an American Catholic Devotion,” American Society for Church History, Washington, DC, January 4-6.

Publications

  • American Patroness: Marian Shrines and the Making of US Catholicism (Fordham 2024), co-edited with Karen E. Park
  • 2019 Millennial Missionaries: How a Group of Young Catholics is Trying to Make Catholicism Cool, Oxford University Press.
  • 2018 “#Adoration: Holy Hour Devotions and Millennials’ Twenty-first Century Catholic Identity,” U.S. Catholic Historian (Winter): 103-127.
  • 2017 “Gendering Prayer: Millennial-generation Catholics and the Embodiment of Feminine Genius and Authentic Masculinity,” Religion and Gender 7 (Vol 7, No 1): 1–17.
  • 2016 “‘Gemma is My Girl!’ Devotional Practices of Millennial Catholic Women and the Making of Contemporary Saints,” American Catholic Studies (Winter): 1-21.

Spring 2017 Laurels Submissions

  • Katherine Dugan, PhD, assistant professor of religion, published “‘Gemma is my girl!’ Devotional practices of millennial Catholic women and the making of contemporary saints” in American Catholic Studies in December 2016.
  • Katherine Dugan, PhD, assistant professor of religion, presented “Ethnography pedagogy, pedagogical ethnography: Using and teaching ethnography in religious studies classrooms” at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, in November 2016. She also presented “A hipster saint and cool Catholics: Crafting millennial-generation Catholic identity in the U.S.” at the American Catholic Historical Association annual meeting in Denver, Colo., in January 2017.

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