Dr. Robert Orsi

Biography

Robert Orsi is the Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies within the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, where he holds a joint appointment in the Department of History. He obtained his Ph.D. from Yale in 1983. Orsi's academic career includes teaching positions at Fordham University from 1981 to 1988, Indiana University from 1988 to 2001, and Harvard Divinity School from 2001 to 2007. He served as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2002-03. Orsi is widely recognized for his research on American Catholicism from a historical and ethnographic perspective, focusing on the methodologies used in the study of religion. His notable works include 'Madonna of 115th Street: Faith Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950,' which won the John Gilmary Shea Prize, and 'Thank You, Saint Jude: Women’s Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes,' which received the Merle Curti Award. His works such as 'Heaven on Earth: Religious Worlds People Make and Scholars Study Them' have earned accolades like the Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion from the American Academy of Religion. He is currently working on a project for the Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies and exploring the social and cultural history of 20th-century Catholic childhoods in the United States.

Research Interests