Darleen Pryds

  • Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality

Please visit my personal webpage

  • Ph.D. University of Wisconsin at Madison
  • M.A. University of Southern California
  • B.A. University of Southern California

"Franciscan history has been at the center of my professional and personal life for 20 years, so it is a special privilege for me to be at FST, where my teaching, research, and public outreach can be rooted in the down-to-earth spirit that Francis fostered in the 13th century."

 

A Catholic laywoman, Darleen is especially interested in teaching and researching historical cases of lay religious leadership. She has published several articles and a book on lay preaching within the Medieval Church. Darleen has received many research grants, including a Fulbright Fellowship to Italy; a Research Fellowship at the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame; and a National Endowment for the Humanities Research grant to research at the Vatican Film Library at Saint Louis University. She remains a loyal alumna of her alma mater, USC, and loves watching USC football games.

Selected Course Descriptions

Lay Spiritual Practices

Participants explore together with the professor a range of spiritual activities used by lay Christians and look at the historical origins and early developments of them. Pilgrimage, prayer, contemplation, storytelling, fasting, feasting, sexuality and celibacy, festivals and processions are among the practices discussed. The historical and cultural background of these practices brings out new aspects of even the most common of these practices. For example, the act of reading psalms and prayers will be discussed in its medieval mode as a form of body prayer.

 

History of Women in Religious Leadership

This course explores the rich history of women leaders within the Christian tradition. While some women, especially recently, have been ordained as ministers within their denomination, throughout Christian history, many more women have exercised influence and authority as spiritual leaders without holding official offices. This course honors their contribution to our faith and seeks to uphold the wide range of leadership roles women have in the Church.

Articles

  • "Studia as Royal Offices: Mediterranean Universities of Medieval Europe," in Medieval Universities in Society, eds. J. Miethke and W. J. Courtenay (Leiden: Brill, 2000).
  • "Court as Studium: Royal Venues for Academic Exercises in Medieval Europe," in Medieval Sermons and Society: Cloister, City, University, eds. B. Kienzle and J. Hamesse (F.I.D.E.M., Louvain-la-Neuve, 1998), pp.343-56.
  • "Proclaiming Sanctity through Proscribed Practices: The Case of Rose of Viterbo," in Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity, eds. Pamela Walker and Beverly Mayne Kienzle (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), pp.159-72.
  • "Monarchs, Lawyers, and Saints: Juridical Preachers' Use of Holiness," in Images of Holiness in Medieval Preaching. Proceedings of the 1995 Sermon Studies Society Conference. ed. Beverly Mayne Kienzle, et al. (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1996), pp.141-56.
  • "Clarisses and the House of Anjou: Temporal and Spiritual Partnership in Early Fourteenth-century Naples," in Clarefest: Word and Image. Selected Papers. ed. Ingrid Peterson (St. Bonaventure, New York: Franciscan Institute, 1996), pp.99-114.
  • "Rex Praedicans: Robert d'Anjou and the Politics of Preaching," De L'Homélie au Sermon. Histoire de la prédication médiévale. Proceedings of the Eighth Sermon Studies Symposium, 9-12 July 1992, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1993), pp. 239-262.