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Franciscan Connections

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Franciscan Connections

Franciscan Connections is an international Franciscan blog that connects, communicates, and conveys the best of Franciscan learning in the twenty-first century. We make contemporary and applied Franciscan scholarship available to a wider world of scholars, educated professionals and communities of practice and a new generation of readers aware of the contribution that solid Franciscan scholarship can make on contemporary issues in politics, society, ethics, and church.

Franciscan connections is a partnership between the Franciscan Study Center at Tilburg University, NL and the Franciscan Institute at Saint Bonaventure University, NY.

Meet the editors and members of the advisory council.
Editors
Ph.D. in Medieval History, Radboud University Nijmegen, and Ph.D. in Medieval Theology, KU Leuven, teaches Christian Spirituality at Tilburg University, School of Catholic Theology, Franciscan Study Center. He is the Chairman of the IGTM – International Society for the Study of Medieval Theology and Chief Editor of Franciscan Connections.
Krijn Pansters
Ph.D. in Pastoral Counseling and Ph.D. in Pastoral Psychology (summa cum laude), Graduate Theological Foundation, is an associate professor of Theology and Franciscan Studies and Executive Director of the Franciscan Institute and Franciscan Institute Publications at St. Bonaventure University.
Fr. David Couturier OFM Cap.
Members of the advisory council
Studied at the Amsterdam University of the Arts – Reinwardt Academy. He is a museologist and cultural heritage specialist and responsible for communication and media within the Dutch/Belgian Franciscan order. He lives in Megen Monastery, the Netherlands.
Br. Hans-Peter Bartels OFM
Ph.D. in Medieval History from the Catholic University of America in 2016. Her research focuses on the everyday lives and preaching practices of Observant Franciscan women in fifteenth-century Italy. She has taught at New Jersey City University, Princeton, and the University of Rhode Island, and currently resides in Providence.
Kate E. Bush
Ph.D. in Historical & Systematic Theology, The Catholic University of America, is a visiting professor of Theology and Franciscan Studies at St. Bonaventure University and a fellow of the Collegio San Bonaventura. He studies exegesis and theology at the early University of Paris. His current project is a full critical edition of Alexander’s lectures on the Gospel of John.
Aaron Gies
Capuchin Franciscan friar of the Australian Province, currently completing an STD on Bonaventure’s sacramental theology. Lecturing at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, in the theology department, with a special focus on preparing education students to teach religious studies in Catholic schools.
Fr. Ben Johnson OFM Cap.
Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from the University of Notre Dame (1999), is associate professor in the Department of History at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA). Her publications have focused primarily on female Franciscanism including Creating Clare of Assisi: Female Franciscan Identities in Later Medieval Italy (Brill, 2008).
Lezlie Knox
Franciscan friar of the Korean province, assistant professor of Systematic Theology at the Pontifical University Antonianum in Rome. After earning his S.T.L with a focus on Comparative Theology at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, he completed his doctoral studies at the University of Notre Dame in the area of World Religions.
Fr. Yongho Francis Lee OFM
Ph.D. in Theology, Trinity College, Dublin, is associate professor of Medieval Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, UK. He has published, among others, An Introduction to Medieval Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Jan van Ruusbroec - Mystical Theologian of the Trinity (Notre Dame, 2003).
Rik Van Nieuwenhove
Ph.D. in Medieval History with a minor in the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has taught at the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego since 2001. She has written three books and many articles on the history of lay Franciscan spirituality and leadership.
Darleen Pryds
Ph.D. in Theology, University of Jena, is a research assistant at the Institute for Late Middle Ages and Reformation of the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Tübingen. He is currently working on prayer in the work of Bonaventure in the context of the Christian and especially the Franciscan tradition.
Jonathan Reinert
Ph.D. in Theology (cum laude) at the former Theological Faculty of Tilburg, worked as a broadcaster for the public broadcasting corporation. Since 2015, he is the coordinator of Luce, an institute focusing on valorization and post-initial education at Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, NL.
Arnold Smeets
Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Boston College, where she currently teaches in the Perspectives on Western Culture program. Among other edited volumes, she is a co-editor of Bonaventure Revisited: Companion to the Breviloquium (2017) and Bonaventure: Friar, Teacher, Minister, Bishop. A Celebration of the Eighth Centenary of His Birth (2020).
Katherine Wrisley Shelby
Ph.D. in Theology and MA in Musicology, is an assistent professor of Franciscan Studies and Managing Director of the Franciscan Study Center at Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, NL. He publishes on Franciscan spirituality in relation to modern-day concerns like leadership and care.
Willem Marie Speelman