Event Details

In collaboration with the History and Spanish and Portuguese Departments the Religious Studies Department is sponsoring two dynamic individuals at a mini-symposium Sunday, March 8th at 4:00pm in Arts Commons 102. The speaking engagement is titled, "Of Blasphemy and Miracles: New Approaches to Old Catholic Puzzles."

University of San Francisco Professor Katrina Olds’s work focuses on early modern Spanish history. Her research interests include popular culture and religion; Counter-Reformation history and hagiography; the history of the book; and religious and intellectual exchange in Spain and the Americas. She is a Macalester alum, and when she was at Macalester, she concentrated in Religious Studies and Spanish, wrote an honors thesis on the Virgin of Guadalupe, and studied abroad in the Dominican Republic, where she learned to speak Spanish, got to see the pope (from very far away), and became fascinated with popular Catholicism. 

Professor Karin Vélez is a member of the faculty of Macalester College. She received her doctorate from the History Department of Princeton University and her research interests  include the history of the Atlantic World, early Modern Iberian and French empires, and popular religion. She has received several awards for her recently published book “​The Miraculous Flying House of Loreto: Spreading Catholicism in the Early Modern World.”