Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in Theology at Regis College, Toronto. He is married with two wonderful children (so far). Outside of theology, his interests include the Toronto Blue Jays, rock’n'roll music and cookware with a lifetime warranty. Brett is the author of two books: How Far Can We Go? A Catholic Guide to Sex and Dating (Novalis, 2009; co-author actually) and Purgatory and the Judgment: A Way Forward for Catholics and Evangelicals (Paulist Press, 2010). The second is just his Master’s thesis. From these titles, the careful observer will discern his interests in sex and ecumenism. The link? Where is the Church’s credibility at stake? Brett is writing his doctoral dissertation on the question of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist as a topic of ecumenical dialogue.
Gerald L. Campbell was educated at Gonzaga University (Philosophy), St. Louis University (Philosophy), Georgetown University (Philosophy), and the Catholic University of America (International Relations). He was a senior staff member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1976 to 1985, the Director of Policy and Research for the National Security Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1980, the Senior Advisor to the Director of the United States Information Agency from 1985 to 1990, and the Special Assistant to the Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs, at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1992 to 1993. From 1997 to 2001, Campbell was the Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of Health for the State of Texas. Until recently, he was President and a member of the Board of Directors of The Impact Group, Inc., a non-profit education foundation located in Washington, D.C. and Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. In June 1990, he began to inquire into the nature, root cause, and the spiritual dynamics of socially dysfunctional behaviors. He spent nearly five years exploring the streets of Washington, D.C., associating with and befriending the homeless, violent youth, and substance abusers. With camera and tape recorder in hand, he took black and white photographic images — and recorded the personal stories — of many of these individuals. He also recorded the stories of many teenagers who had been incarcerated for capital crimes.
Henry Karlson, born in Augusta Georgia, and raised in Indianapolis, is naturally a Southerner but culturally a Mid-Westerner. Ever confused by this enigma, he has taken a life-long interest in paradoxes, adding more and more of them to his life as he tries to work out his own salvation with much fear and trembling. Raised a Southern Baptist, he converted to the Catholic faith as a Byzantine Catholic on Pascha 1995. As a doctoral student in Systematic Theology working on his dissertation, he finds it difficult to focus on one theme and one theological tradition, explaining why his dissertation is a multi-religious examination on the theme of eternal perdition by putting the thought of Hans Urs Von Balthasar in comparative dialogue with Asanga the Yogacarin. He has taught undergraduate coursework at both the Catholic University of America and Georgetown. He is a co-founder and contributor of the blog, The Well at the World’s End. And if you are curious, his library thing profile is here: http://www.librarything.com/profile/HornOrSilk . He also has put together an e-book edition of some short stories he has written in his spare time. You can read about it here. A print edition is available as well, as per this post. He also has put together a collection of his essays on the Inklings, as you can read about here (some of them are adaptations of posts on Vox Nova, but others are original to the book itself). A third book, which collects and edits various theological posts from Vox Nova, is also now available. Be sure to look for them on Amazon.com!
Kari J. Lundgren is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, where she also received her MA in Rhetoric. She did her undergraduate work in Philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. Her research focuses on the legitimation of political structures through religious language, with an emphasis on the rhetorical mechanisms of contemporary Catholicism. Kari is co-founder of Religious Rhetorics. In addition, her commentary on contemporary Catholicism and abortion politics was featured on The Huffington Post during the weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election.
Kyle R. Cupp was born in California, lived many years in Iowa, attended college at Franciscan University in Ohio, and now lives with his wife and son in North Texas. He has a BA in English and an MA in Philosophy. His philosophical interests include phenomenology, hermeneutics, and political theory. Kyle enjoys bicycling to work, slaying dragons with his son, playing videogames, and diagramming sentences. He also blogs at Journeys in Alterity and Evangelical Catholicism.
Mark DeFrancisis, a regular commenter here at Vox Nova, earned a BA in philosophy from the University of Toronto, St. Michael’s College. He’s done extensive graduate studies in philosophy, English and education at Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, PA. Mark has worked in Catholic education and youth and young adult ministry. He is a classical music junkie (Bach, Mozart, Bruckner and Mahler are among his favorite composers) and die-hard Pittsburgh Pirates fan.
Matt Talbot, a regular commenter at Vox Nova, blogs over at The Hopeful Populist and lives in Berkeley, California. He describes himself as an ordinary sinner who believes “a saint is a sinner who keeps trying.”
Radical Catholic Mom is originally from Idaho, but lives in Alaska and loves it. She graduated from the University of Dallas with a degree in English Literature with a Spanish concentration and an emphasis in Theology. She currently is enrolled in a Master’s of Education program at Wayland Baptist University. Her real learning came during and after college when she volunteered for short term and long term missions throughout the Southern US and Latin America. She is a newly single woman and the momma of three children, one on Earth and two in Heaven. Her passion is pro-life issues and all other Catholic Social Justice issues. She is also a convert to Catholicism from Lutheranism. She blogs at Radical Catholic Mom.
Sam Rocha was born—as far as he knows—in Brownsville, Texas and grew up in a Catholic missionary family. He was enrolled (and sometimes attended) Franciscan University of Steubenville as an undergraduate. After various other academic degrees, he currently works as a visiting assistant professor at Wabash College, where he assists in professing things in the philosophy department and the teacher education program. He also professes things elsewhere. For instance, he sings and plays guitar—sometimes professionally—when he can/must. And, of course, he professes things here at Vox-Nova. Sam uniquely enjoys the sensation he gets while writing about himself in third person and intends on attempting to speak this way at parties, if he gets invited to any. As far as what Sam “is”: he is fairly convinced that he some-thing instead of no-thing. The rest is mysterious and uncertain. For more, you can visit his website: www.samrocha.com
