School of Arts & Sciences Faculty
Fodor, James
TITLES/RESPONSIBILITIES
Professor of Theology
ACADEMIC SCHOOL
School of Arts & Sciences
ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT
Theology and Franciscan Studies
CONTACT INFORMATION
Office Phone: (716) 375-2418
Send an Email
Fax: (716) 375-7857
OFFICE LOCATION
Plassmann Hall E-9
COURSES TAUGHT
- Undergraduate theology
- THFS 257. Spirituality and Aging
- THFS 330. Philosophy of Religion
- THFS 343. Christianity and Society
- THFS 348. Health Care Ethics
- THFS 349. Introduction to Christian Ethics
- PHIL 341. Environmental Ethics
- Friendship Ethics
- Christian Business Ethics
- Graduate theology
- Contemporary Moral Theology
- Undergraduate core curriculum
- CLAR 101. The Intellectual Journey
- CLAR 206. Foundational Religious Texts of the Western World
- CLAR 207. The Catholic & Franciscan Heritage
- CLAR 304. The Good Life
ACADEMIC DEGREES
- Ph.D., University of Cambridge
- M. Christian Studies, Regent College
- B.A., North American Baptist College
OTHER EDUCATION
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
- 2005-2007, Chair of Theology department, St. Bonaventure University
- 2003-present, Member of Bogoni Gerontology Project and member of advisory board, St. Bonaventure University
- 2002-2004, Member of Governance Task Force, St. Bonaventure University
- 2002-present, Consulting board member of the Journal of Textual Reasoning, an E-Journal of the Society of Textual Reasoning, a community of contemporary Jewish thinkers given to exploring overlapping practices of Jewish philosophy and textual interpretation arising out of a confluence of postmodern philosophy, pragmatism, and cultural theory coupled with the dialogical and hermeneutical Jewish philosophies of Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas.
- 2001-present, Editorial board member of the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning, an E-Journal of the Society of Scriptural Reasoning, a publication of a network of Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars promoting religious readings of scriptures within the Academy.
- 2001-present, Editorial board member of Cithera: Essays in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition
- 2001-present, Member of the Ethics Committee and Institutional Review Board at Olean General Hospital, Olean, NY
- 2000-2003, Member of Diversity Curriculum Committee, St. Bonaventure University
- 2000-present, Co-editor, Modern Theology, a leading international journal with an ecumenical editorial policy dedicated to publishing exceptional scholarly articles addressing issues specific to the discipline of theology and wider issues from a theological perspective.
- 1999-present, Member of the steering committee of the National Society for Scriptural Reasoning committed to the study and interpretation of the sacred Scriptures of Abrahamite traditions.
- 1997-2000, Managing Editor, Modern Theology
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Scholarships/Awards/Other Forms of Achievement
- 1992-94, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship
- 1990-91, The Burney Studentship (Cambridge - research in philosophy of religion)
- 1989-90, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship
- 1989-90, North American Scholarship (Wolfson College, Cambridge)
- 1989-90, Canadian Centennial Scholarship (London, England)
- 1987-90, Overseas Research Students Award (Cambridge University)
- 1983-84, Board of Govenors Prize for General Proficiency
- 1981-82, Theology Prize
- 1981-82, Board of Govenors Prize for General Proficiency
- 1980-81, Faculty Scholar in Recognition of Academic Work Accomplished with High Distinction
- 1980-81, The James Melady Scholarship
- 1979-80, The Basil R. Sullivan Scholarship
- 1979-80, The Religious Studies Prize
Publications
- Forthcoming
- Reparative Religious Reading: Theological, Philosophical and Literary Reflections in a Postmodern Context (book manuscript in preparation).
- Routledge Companion to the Study of Christian Theology, edited by Mike Higton and Jim Fodor (London: Routledge, forthcoming).
- “‘Alien Beauty’: Parabolic Judgment and the Witness of Faith” in “Beauty of all things beautiful”: Theology and the Arts, Oleg Bychkov and Jim Fodor, eds. (forthcoming in 2008 by Ashgate Publishers).
- Theological Aesthetics after von Balthasar, Oleg Bychkov and Jim Fodor, eds. (forthcoming in 2008 by Ashgate Publishers).
- 2007
- “The Beauty of the Word Re-membered: Scripture Reading as a Cognitive/Aesthetic Practice”, in The Beauty of God: Theology and the Arts, edited by Daniel J. Treier, Mark Husbands and Roger Lundin (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), pp. 161-183.
- Review of Peter M. Candler, Jr., Theology, Rhetoric, Manuduction, or Reading Scripture Together on the Path to God (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006) in Modern Theology, Vol. 23 no. 4 (October, 2007), pp. 654-657.
- Review of Randi Rashkover, Revelation and Theopolitics: Barth, Rosenzweig and the Politics of Praise (T&T Clark International, 2005) in Theology Vol. 150 no. 857 (October, 2007), pp. 383-384.
- 2005
- “Postliberal Theology” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, 3rd edition, David F. Ford and Rachel Muers, editors (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers), pp. 229-248.
- Review of Graham Hughes, Worship as Meaning: A Liturgical Theology for Late Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) in Modern Theology Vol. 21 no. 4 (October), pp. 682-685.
- “Usury, Scriptural Economics and Eschatological Time” in The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning, Vol. 5 no. 2 (August) Rachel Muers, guest editor. an e-journal published by the E-Text Center, University of Virginia at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/ssr/
- 2004
- “Scripture Reading: Rehearsing Identity/Practicing Character” in Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, edited by Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers), pp. 141-155.
- "Performing Faith: The Peaceable Rhetoric of God's Church" (co-authored with Stanley Hauerwas) in Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence, (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press), pp. 75-109.
- Review of James O. Grunebaum, Friendship: Liberty, Equality, and Utility (New York: SUNY, 2003) in Cithera: Essays in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition, Vol. XLIII no. 2 (May), pp. 54-57.
- Aquinas in Dialogue: Thomas for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Jim Fodor and Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2004).
- 2003
- Review of Garrett Green, Theology, Hermeneutics and Imagination: The Crisis of Interpretation at the End of Modernity in Pro Ecclesia Vol. 12 no. 1 (Winter), pp. 118-120.
- 2002
- “Hermeneutics and the Just” in Between the Human and the Divine: Philosophical and Theological Hermeneutics, Andrzej Wiercinski, editor (Toronto: The Hermeneutic Press), pp. 408-426.
- “Textual Reasoning as Social Performance: Meeting Over the Text” in the inaugural issue of Textual Reasoning: Rereading Judaism After Modernity Vol. 1 no. 1 (Spring), Steven Kepnes and Shaul Magid, editors. an e-journal published by the E-Text Center, University of Virginia athttp://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/tr/
- 2001
- Review of Paul J. Griffiths, Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) in Modern Theology Vol. 17 No. 4 (October), pp. 529-531.
- Review of Peter Ochs, Peirce, Pragmatism, and the Logic of Scripture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Pro Ecclesia Vol. 10 no. 4 (Fall), pp. 496-498.
- “Selected Annotated Bibliography: 1971-2001” with John Berkman, in The Hauerwas Reader, edited by John Berkman and Michael Cartwright (Durham and London: Duke University Press), pp. 673-698.
- 2000
- "Performing Faith: The Peaceable Rhetoric of God's Church" (co-authored with Stanley Hauerwas) in Rhetorical Invention and Religious Inquiry: New Perspectives, eds. Walter Jost and Wendy Olmsted (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), pp. 381-414.
- "Christian Discipleship as Participative Imitation: Theological Reflections on Girardian Themes," in Violence Renounced: René Girard, Biblical Studies, and Peacemaking, edited by Willard M. Swartley (Telford, PA: Pandora Press), pp. 246-276.
Research Projects
- 2005 St. Bonaventure University Summer Research Fellowship: “Augustine and Religious Reading”
- 2004 “Reading as Spiritual Exercise: Philosophical and Theological Practices of Intellectual Ascent in a Post-Critical Mode”
- 2002 “Reading as Liturgical Performance: Reading, Reasoning and the Repair of Ecclesial Imagination”
Conference/Seminar Papers and Invited Lectures
- 2007
- Cambridge Interfaith Programme and Scriptural Reasoning Theory Group Conference, 28 May-1 June, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Topics: “The Burning Bush: Exodus 3,” and “Interpreting the Signs of Scripture: C.S. Peirce, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Nursi.”
- 2006
- “The Beauty of the Word Re-membered: Scripture Reading as a cognitive/aesthetic practice”, presented at the 15th Annual Wheaton College Theology conference, “The Beauty of God: Theology and the Arts”, Wheaton, Illinois, April 6-8, 2006.
- Cambridge Interfaith Programme and Scriptural Reasoning Theory Group Conference, 5-9 June, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Topics: “The Phenomenon of Prophetic Revelation in the Abrahamic Faiths,” “The Modality of Scriptural Reasoning,” and “The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning.”
- “Grace at the End of Life” conference, St. Bonaventure University, 20 June. Participant in plenary panel response to Kathy Egan and co-facilitator/presenter with Dr. Beth Lenegan, Director of Pastoral Care at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY in ‘break out’ session: “Spiritual and Ethical Considerations: Providing Care and Support.”
- “Religion, Spirituality, and Medicine: Implications of Faith for Clinical Practice,” Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and School of Pharmacy (LECOM), Erie, PA, November 8.
- 2005
- Cambridge Interfaith Programme and Scriptural Reasoning Theory Group Conference, 30 May-3 June, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Topics: “Liturgy and Poetics,” “Semiotics and Phenomenology” and “Debt Release in the Abrahamic Traditions”
- 2004
- “‘Alien Beauty’: Parabolic Judgment and the Witness of Faith” International Conference on Theological Aesthetics at St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, NY, May 19-23.
- Cambridge Interfaith Programme and Scriptural Reasoning Theory Group Conference, 31 May-4 June, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Topics: “Debt Release in the Abrahamic Traditions,” “Societal Economics and the Kingdom of God: Scripture and Economics,” “Scriptural Reasoning: steps towards a classroom pedagogy,” and “Scriptural Reasoning Among the University Disciplines.”
- 2003
- Cambridge Interfaith Programme and Scriptural Reasoning Theory Group Conference, 26-30 May, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Topics: “The Tent of Meeting Document,” “Logos, Creation and Revelation,” “Abrahamic Theo-sociality and hospitality,” and “The Implications of Scriptural Reasoning for Abrahamic Peace-Making in the Middle East.”
- 2002
- Reason, Revelation and the University: The Possibilities of Hermeneutics and History, invited response to Basit Kashul, “Beyond the Reason/Revelation Divide: On Abraham the Philosophizing Prophet”, at the Inauguration of IQRAR, the Society of Qur’anic Reasoners of the Society of Scriptural Reasoning, University of Virginia, March 21-23.
- “Hermeneutics and the Just” presentation at the International Congress on Hermeneutics at St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, NY, May 5-12.
- Society for Scriptural Reasoning SR Theory Group Retreat: “Sophia Center,” Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntingdon, NY, June 4-6. Topics: “The Tent of Meeting Document,” “SSR: The Rules of Scriptural Reasoning,” “Scriptural Reasoning Learning Outcomes,” and “The Children of Abraham Institute (undergraduates).”
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS/PROJECTS
PERSONAL INTERESTS/COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT