Speaker Profile

Paul Lakeland

Dr. Paul Lakeland is the Rev. Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J., Professor of Catholic Studies and Chair of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut and was the 2005 Fairfield University Teacher of the Year.

He is the Director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield and is host of the video series Voices of Others in which he sits down with distinguished scholars, theologians and social activists to discuss issues surrounding the theme “Listening to the Voices of Others.” He is a contributing blogger  to The Huffington Post and a contributing writer to Commonweal. Dr. Lakeland, a former Jesuit priest, is married and has one son, Jonathan Parker Lakeland.

Dr. Lakeland received his Licentiate in Philosophy from Heythrop Pontifical Athenaeum, an M.A. from Oxford University in English Language and Literature, a Bachelor of Divinity degree from the University of London, and his Ph.D. in religion from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. At Fairfield he teaches courses on ecclesiology, religion and culture, and religion and literature. He is the author of some 35 scholarly articles and 8 books, the most recent of which are:

• Theology and Critical Theory: the Discourse of the Church (Abingdon Press, 1990)
• Postmodernity: Christian Identity in a Fragmented Age (Fortress Press, 1997)
• The Liberation of the Laity: In Search of an Accountable Church (Continuum, 2003), which received the 2004 Catholic Press Association Award for the best book in theology
• Catholicism at the Crossroads: How the Laity Can Save the Church (Cotinuum, 2007), which also won an award from the Catholic Press Association
• Church: Living Communion (Liturgical Press, 2009)

Paul Lakeland is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the Catholic Theological Society of America, and the independent ecumenical association of systematic and constructive theologians, the Workgroup for Constructive Theology. His academic and research interests include the roles of the laity in the Catholic Church, the Papacy, religion and literature, and the relations between religious commitment and progressive politics.
Having recently been named to the Alan Richardson Visiting Fellowship at Durham University in the United Kingdom, Paul will be spending the autumn term of 2010 in the shadow of an extraordinary Norman Cathedral, a European Heritage Site, working on a number of writing projects, including his next book, provisionally entitled Wrestling With Ignatius.