Upcoming Events

Michel Chambon (Boston U) will share recent research on "Redefining Global Catholicism: African Flesh on Chinese Soil," 2 p.m., March 27, Adorjan Hall, 142.

Samantha Kelly (Rutgers) will discuss her monograph "Translating Faith: Ethiopian Pilgrims in Renaissance Rome" at noon, April 17, 2026, Boileau Hall. Complimentary lunch to follow hosted by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Register today!

Past Events

CRGC 2025-2027 Fellows Symposium: Merry Wiesner-Hanks, “Spaces of Honor and Memory: Reforming Women around the Globe,” 3 p.m. Sept. 19, Pere Marquette Gallery, DuBourg Hall, room 240

Book Symposium featuring Jean-Luc Enyegue, S.J.: "Competing Catholicisms: The Jesuits, the Vatican, and the Making of French Colonial Africa" (2022), 3 p.m., April 11, 2025, Pere Marquette Gallery, DuBourg Hall

Christina Lee (Princeton), "Devotions in the Early Modern Spanish Pacific: Between Catholicism and Indigenous Idolatry at the Intersection of the Global and the Local,"4 p.m., Nov. 6, 2024

CRGC Conference (in partnership with Washington University in St. Louis): "The Catholic Enlightenment in Europe, the Americas and Australia (1700-1840): Balancing Loyalties Between State, Nationality, Citizenship, and the Global Church" Sept. 20-21, 2024

CRGC Book Symposium: Cécile Fromont, "Images on a Mission in Early Modern Kongo and Angola" (Penn State, 2022), with Erin Rowe (Johns Hopkins) and Olubukola Gbadegesin (SLU) April 5, 2024

Sarah Shortall, "Planetary Catholicism: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the Spirituality of the United Nations" Jan. 26, 2024

Alexia Williams, "Envisioning Paradise: Canonizing African American Catholic Women of the Frontier"
Nov. 9, 2023

Biennial Conference: "Translations, Transgressions, and Transformations: the Global Movement of Objects in Catholic Cultures"
Oct. 20-21, 2023

Book Symposium Featuring John McGreevy: "Catholicism: a Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis"
(with John McGreevy, Hal Parker and Elizabeth Foster)
April 21, 2023

Research Forum Featuring Miguel Valerio, "Black Catholicism in the Early Modern Iberian World"
March 31, 2023

Brown Bag Featuring Nick Lewis: "The Jesuits and Indigenous Boarding Schools"
Feb. 17, 2023

Research Forum Featuring Cathleen Fleck: "Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Jerusalem in the 13th Century: the Evidence of Art and Material Culture"
Nov. 9, 2022

Book Symposium Featuring Jennifer Scheper Hughes: "The Church of the Dead: the Epidemic of 1576 and the Birth of Christianity in the Americas"
(with Jennifer Scheper Hughes, Paul Ramirez and Nathaniel Millett)
Oct. 21, 2022

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Center for Research on Global Catholicism

The Center for Research on Global Catholicism (CRGC) at Saint Louis University supports scholarship at the nexus of Catholicism and culture, providing robust programming that promotes interdisciplinary research, collaboration, and methodological innovation.

In this video, three members of the CRGC leadership team discuss the center, its mission, and why SLU is an ideal place to do this research.

CRGC Fellows

In 2024, the Center for Research on Global Catholicism launched its Seminar Fellowship Program. Our 2025-2027 fellows are pursuing projects on the theme of "Global Catholicism in Local Spaces."

Meet the 2025-2027 CRGC Fellows

Graduate Assistant Researchers

The Center for Research on Global Catholicism at Saint Louis University supports graduate student researchers who contribute to CRGC programming and digital humanities research projects while also pursuing their own scholarship for one-year terms.

Dackerie Bowes

Dackerie Bowes is a Ph.D. student at Saint Louis University concentrating on the history of early modern Iberia and colonial Latin America. Her research interests include the Inquisition, the intersection of visual and material histories, the tailoring of spaces and identities, processions and fashion. Her current projects include a material-based comparison of Corpus Christi processions in Spain and New Spain, as well as a piece on containers utilized for preservation, circulation, display or containment. Her work investigates boxes, cases, reliquaries and related artifacts that intersect with histories of visibility and invisibility. Dackerie served the CRGC from 2025-2026.

Our Mission

Our mission is to make Saint Louis University an internationally-recognized hub for research on global Catholicism. The Center for Research on Global Catholicism supports scholarship on the ways and means by which Catholicism migrated across time and space to become a global religion, entangled with imperial ambitions, in excess of official intentions, mobilized by material objects, affective relationships, politics, theologies, epidemics and more.

The objectives of the Center for Research on Global Catholicism include:

Capitalizing on scholarly expertise at SLU and in St. Louis to advance knowledge and understanding of global Catholicism
Facilitating connections between local archives and research scholars
Supporting scholars working in the field of global Catholicism by providing resources, community, and opportunities for collaboration

The Center for Research on Global Catholicism is a Big Idea project sponsored by the Research Growth Fund at SLU. The first Big Idea grounded in the Humanities, the CRGC brings together three key components of SLU’s Jesuit history and mission: a legacy of global engagement, a commitment to rigorous academic inquiry and a focus on social justice.

Support Us

Giving to the CRGC supports our lecture and book symposium series, conferences, Seminar Fellows Program and more.