Italian Studies

Daniel Bate (formerly Daniel Rietze) studies Catholicism in 19th- and 20th-century Italy. He approaches the study of religion through the lives and writings of individual Italian Catholics who lived far from the institutional centers of ecclesial power, but for whom spirituality was a creative pursuit. His research interests include dissent, renewal, and reform in the collective life of the Church; theologies of liberation; mysticism and popular religion; and the exchange between theology, politics, and literature. Daniel's dissertation, "Catholic Ecology: Reinhabiting Italian Landscapes, 1891-1965," interrogates the cosmological dimension of Catholics' emergence as citizens of modern Italy between Rerum Novarum and the Second Vatican Council, tracing how Catholics' renewed thinking about material Creation and humans' connection with the environment animated their renewed sociopolitical activity. This research has been supported by the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University Chicago, the American Catholic Historical Association, the Cesare Barbieri Endowment for Italian Culture at Trinity College, and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. Before coming to Brown, Daniel earned his BA in English and Italian literature at Yale University, and in addition to completing his PhD in Italian Studies, he is currently finishing an MA in Religious Studies through Brown's Open Graduate Education Program. Daniel and his husband are active parishioners at their neighborhood Catholic church. Primary Advisor: Caroline Castiglione