The Core is an opportunity to inquire into the fundamental aspects of being and our relationship with God, nature and our fellow human beings.
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Phone: (972) 721-5339
Email: bward@udallas.edu
Office: Braniff Graduate Building 306
Bernadette Waterman Ward earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her research interests include Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Henry Newman. She was tenured at the State University of New York before admiration for the Core Curriculum brought her to the University of Dallas in 2000. She has written World as Word: Philosophical Theology in Gerard Manley Hopkins (Catholic University of America, 2002) and Eliot’s Angels: George Eliot, Rene Girard, and Mimetic Desire (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022) and dozens of articles on both nineteenth-century British writers and twentieth-century Americans. She is on the editorial board of The Hopkins Quarterly. She is a member of the board of directors for both the St John Henry Newman Association and University Faculty for Life. She also enjoys hiking and mountaineering with her husband and children.
“Sacramentality,” Hopkins in Context, ed. Martin DuBois, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.
Pending “Song at Nightfall: Gerard Manley Hopkins and Holy Hope” ch. 21 in The Imagination’s Journey to God: A Handbook of Literary Apologetics forthcoming from De Gruyter Press.
“Nurture and the Machine: Willful Delusion in Klara and the Sun,” Life and Learning XXXII, Proceedings of the Thirty-Second University Faculty for Life Conference (2023), ed. J.D. Flanagan, 97-107.
“Catholic Bishops Fail in Defending Conscience,” lead article in Public Discourse, March 15, 2022 https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2022/03/81159/.
“Poet of Pregnancy: Anna Laetitia Barbauld” Life and Learning XXXI Proceedings of the Thirty-first University Faculty for Life Conference, ed. Joseph Koterski (2021) 113-130.
“A Word on ‘A Word in Season,’” A Word in Season 1:1. December 2020, 8-15.
“Life and Truth in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go,” Life and Learning XXX, (2020) ed. Joseph Koterski, 139-156.
“John Henry Newman (1801-90 CE) at the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide, Basilica de Sant’Andrea delle Fratte, and the Chiesa de S. Giorgio in Velabro.” People and Places of the Roman Past: the Educated Traveller’s Guide, ed. Peter Hatlie (Kalamazoo and London: ARC Humanities Press, 2018) 159-172.
‘“Them there sort:’ The Disabled in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor, Life and Learning XXIX, Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth University Faculty for Life Conference, ed. Joseph Koterski, 253-261.
“Gerard Manley Hopkins and Ruskin’s Idea of the Christian Artist,” Religion and the Arts 22 (2018) 445-467.
" 'Crimes of Inaction:' Death by Neglect in George Eliot's Novels," Life and Learning XXVI: Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth University Faculty for Life Conference. 2017, 107-116.
"Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Blessed Virgin Mary," St Austin Review, July-August 2018.
“Suicide, Shakespeare and Sloth,” Life and Learning XXV, 2017, 229-241.
“Evangélisation et assentiment vivant chez John Henry Newman”, Etudes Newmaniennes, Paris: Association Française des Amis de Newman, 31 (2015), pp. 179-193.
“Jocasta and the Sin of Thebes,” Life and Learning XXIII (2013), 101-112 (copyright 2017).
“Hopkins’s Heroic Women,” The Hopkins Quarterly XXXIX, 1-2 (Winter-Spring, 2012) 26-36.
“Callista and the Hunger for God in the Empire,” Louvain Studies 35 (2011) 367-383.
“Word, Sacrament and the Divine Lover: Gerard Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickinson” in The Prospect of Lyric, ed. Bainard Cowan, intr. Louise Cowan (Dallas: The Dallas Institute Press, 2011) 171-198.
“Newman e quel III secolo cosi e simile a oggi: Una riletura del romanzo Callista” L’Osservatore Romano, Edizione Quotidiana (31 Diciember 2010) 4. (Translation and condensation of “Newman the Novelist: Callista and the Hunger for God in the Empire”).
“Newman the Novelist: Callista and the Hunger for God in the Empire” L’Osservatore Romano, 2010 Weekly Edition in English 49 ( 8 December 2010) 14-15.
Performance and Readings of Dramatic and Poetic Works
Upon the Children, full length drama (92 minutes) dramatic reading at the 33rd University Faculty for Life Conference, Post –Roe: Policy Considerations, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul Minnesota, June 3, 2023.
“The Cryosphere,”” “Athabasca Valley 1: Insides”; “Upon a Rock,”” “The Physicist,” For Every Time, a Season, Eighth Annual Braniff Conference in the Liberal Arts, University of Dallas, March 4, 2022.
“December Invitation,” “Plague of Crickets,” at The Dead Poets’ Laureate, The Writer’s Guild of St. John, November 18, 2019.
“Plague of Crickets,” “Twenty Below at Table Mountain,” “A Cattlewoman Speaks of Animal Rights,” “Shuksan: Betrothal,” “Rider on a White Horse,” Poetry reading at Sixth Annual Braniff Conference in the Liberal Arts, The World is Bare Now: Nature and Human Flourishing, University of Dallas, November 15, 2019.
“Upon a Rock,” “Athabasca Valley 1: Insides”; “Twenty Below at Table Mountain,” “The Cryosphere” and “The Physicist” performed at Bones Risen: A Poetry Reading at the Conference on Christianity and Literature, University of Dallas, September 14, 2019.
A Time of Fire, revival, full production, dir. Hope Waterman, University of Dallas, March 23, 2018.
The Crack in the Door, staged reading of full-length play, University Faculty for Life Conference, June8-9 , 2018, University of Dallas
Lecture and Conference Papers
Respondent to a paper on Thomas Carlyle and Rene Girard, Braniff Conference on the Liberal Arts, October 27, 2023.
“The University of Dallas Core Curriculum,” invited presentation to an intercollegiate study group of Jesuits, St. Rita’s campus, Dallas, Texas, October 1, 2023.
“Internal Exiles: One Poor Scruple, a Neglected Victorian Women’s Novel,” at Aliens and Allies: 2023 Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, September 21, 2023.
“The Context of the Bishops’ Unease about Newman’s University,” Victorian Religion in England and Ireland, Keogh-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame, September 8, 2023
“Newman’s Ideal Mentor, St. Cyprian,” Integrity, Authenticity and Mentorship: St. John Henry Newman, In Honor of Fr. John T. Ford, CSC, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC August 3-5, 2023.
“Songs at Nightfall: Hopkins and Holy Hope,” Literary Apologetics Online Conference, June 7-8, 2023.
“From Hegel to Google by way of Callista,” Newman & Literary Studies Symposium, February 20-21, 2023, Institute of Theology and Liberal Arts, St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, England.
“Eliot’s Angels” Book Launch lecture at the University of Dallas, Irving, Texas, October 3, 2022.
“Newman against Nineteenth-Century Distortions of the Idea of Conscience,” Newman and the Interior Life, St. John Henry Newman Association Conference, Holy Cross College, Notre Dame, Indiana, Aug. 6, 2022.
“Nurture and the Machine: Wilful Delusion in Klara and the Sun,” at Attacks on Human Life: Recent Crises and the Long View, Thirty-Second Conference of the University Faculty for Life, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame Indiana, June 11, 2022
“Lessons from Katsuo Ishiguro on Nurture and Machinery,” Opening Address at Second Annual Old Mill Symposium, Irving, Texas, April 8, 2022.“Dante, Newman and the Way out of Hell,” keynote address at The Good Life, Braniff Undergraduate Conference, University of Dallas, February 5, 2022.
“Girard, Ishiguro and the Mimetic Crisis in Education,” invited lecture at Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute: Christianity and Scholarship, Southern Methodist University, Nov. 30, 2021
“Artistic Integrity in “[The times are nightfall]” and the Terrible Sonnets,” Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature, Northeastern State University, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, October 16, 2021.
“Newman Now,” Presidential Address at St. John Henry Newman Association Conference, The Hour of the Laity, University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas, July 29, 2021.
“Human Freedom in Mimesis as Revealed in George Eliot” at COVR Online Conference Sponsored by Purdue University, July 7-12, 2021.
“Gerontius in Time of Plague,” Newman Association of America Online Conference, August 2020.
“Gerard Manley Hopkins and Aesthetics,” Guest lecture in Cindy Nielson ‘s course in Aesthetics, University of Dallas Philosophy department, Irving, TX Feb. 14, 2020
“’I am Near to Death’: The Dream of Gerontius,” Institute of Catholic Culture Webinar, April 6, 2020, Zoom presentation“Life and Truth in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, “University Faculty for Life online Conference, June 2020
“How Newman Learned to Consult the Faithful,” at A Celebration of St. John Henry Newman, University of Dallas, November 19, 2019.
“Newman and the Problem of Academic Freedom,” Ideas of a University: Newman Association of America Conference, Holy Cross University, New Orleans Aug1-4, 2019.
“’Them there sort’: The Disabled in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor.” University Faculty for Life Conference, June 6-7 2019, Mundelein, IL
“Charged with the Grandeur of God: Gerard Manley Hopkins and Ecological Subsidiarity,” Earth Day Lecture sponsored by Environmental Conservation Organization, Gupta College of Business, April 23, 2019.
"Against Irrationalism: Newman and C.S. Lewis,” Newman Association of America Conference, Newman and Twentieth Century Thinkers, Benedictine College, Atchison Kansas, July 31, 2018.