meet the scholars
saint louis university
(From left to right) Anna Katharina Rudolph, Caitlin Stamm, Rena Schergen, Kate Moran, Catherine Lucy, Mary Dunn, Amanda Gesiorski.
Dr. Mary Dunn
Professor
Theological Studies
Director
Center for Research on Global Catholicism
As a historian of religion, I work in the area of early modern Catholicism. I have published extensively on Catholicism in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century colonial New France, including on the Jesuits, martyrdom, and women’s religious orders, as well as on theory and method in the study of religion. I am currently at work on a new book project focusing on the history of Quebec’s nineteenth-century foundlings and the Augustinian nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu who cared for them.
mary.dunn@slu.edu
Dr. Anna Katharina Rudolph
postdoctoral research fellow
Center for Research on Global Catholicism
My research is driven by questions of how the sacred intersects with the political to define women’s roles over time and across space. How did medieval women navigate social limitations by using religion to achieve political power? In my recent book, Rewriting History and the Myth of the French Nation: The Hagiography of Radegund of Poitiers from Medieval to Modernity, I use the global “afterlife” of the Frankish queen-saint, Radegund of Poitiers (520-587), to investigate the complex relationship between hagiography, gender, and the construction of national identities. Tracing the myriad ways Radegund has been reimagined in art and text over the last 1400 years offers new insights into how French identity has been expressed both at home and abroad.
My role as the Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the CRGC unites my two greatest passions: Public History and the study of women’s monasticism. In this capacity, I designed the SCAC website as a space dedicated to increasing the visibility of and enhancing access to the archives of St. Louis women religious.
annakatharina.rudolph@slu.edu
Caitlin Stamm
Executive Committee Member
Center for research on global catholicism
&
university Archivist and Associate professor
Saint Louis University Archives
Caitlin Stamm is an Associate Professor at Saint Louis University where she has served as University Archivist at the Pius XII Memorial Library since 2020. She holds an M.A. in Library and Information Science and a Special Collections Certificate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She specializes in the management of religious archives, acquisitions, cataloging, preservation, digitization and digital preservation projects, and the creation of archival finding aids. She also selects and creates content for digital collections, blog, and social media platforms. Beginning in Summer 2024, Stamm will serve as the SCAC Project Supervisor.
archives@slu.edu
Dr. Miguel Romero
Associate Professor
Health Care Ethics
executive committee member
Center for Research on Global Catholicism
miguel.romero@slu.edu
meet the archvisits
Catherine Lucy
Director of Archives
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Consolidated Archives
Catherine Lucy is the director of the Carondelet Consolidated Archives for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. She has worked with the congregation since 2018. She holds a master’s of library and information sciences from San Jose State University and became a certified archivist in 2020. As director of the archives, she oversees every element of the department, including the development and implementation of policies and procedures, and the acquisition, cataloging and preservation of archival materials. She also provides reference service, interacts with researchers, write blog posts, hosts tours, and gives presentations. Catherine is a member of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), Archivists for Congregations of Women Religious (ACWR), Midwest Archives Conference (MAC), and the Association of St. Louis Area Archivists (ASLAA). She has also served on the board of the Carondelet Historical Society since 2021.
archivist@csjcarondelet.org
Amanda Gesiorski
Archivist
St. Louis Visitation Archives
Since 2016, Amanda Gesiorski has managed and provided access to the collection of documents and artifacts of the St. Louis Visitation Sisters and the school they founded, Visitation Academy. She received her B.A. in History and Anthropology from Ripon College and completed her M.A. in Museum Studies at Baylor University. Previously, she held an assistantship as a processing archivist at the Texas Collection of Baylor University. Amanda is particularly interested in developing programming for pre-K through 12th grades and excited to be collaborating with her archival colleagues at the Visitation institutions in Minnesota and Georgetown to establish a Visitation Archives Consortium. Amanda is a certified archivist (CA) and a member of the Archivists for Congregations of Women Religious (ACWR) and the Association of St. Louis Area Archivists (ASLAA).
archives@visitationacademy.org
Rena Schergen
Archivist
Archdiocese of St. Louis Archives
As the archivist for the Archdiocese of St. Louis since 2013, Rena Schergen oversees and provides access to collections that date to the early 1800s. Previously, she worked at Special Collections at the University of Chicago where she assisted researchers. She received her Masters of Science of Library and Information Science (MSLIS) from the University of Urbana-Champaign in 2013 and became a certified archivist (CA) in 2020. Rena is active in the archival community, having served in roles at professional organizations such as the Association of Catholic Diocesan Archivists (ACDA), the Association of St. Louis Area Archivists (ASLAA), and the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC).
renaschergen@archstl.org