Royal W.F. Rhodes, who joined the Kenyon faculty in 1979, teaches primarily the history of Christianity. His other interests include liberation theology, third world religious experience, monasticism (East and West), and religion and the arts.
His first book was Faith of Christians (Fortress Press, 1984), co-authored with the late A. Denis Baly. With co-author George McCarthy of the Sociology Department he has published Eclipse of Justice: Ethics, Economics, and the Lost Traditions of American Catholicism (Orbis, 1992), and they are completing another book on social justice movements in Ireland, Germany, and the U.S., entitled Justice Beyond Heaven. In 1995 he published The Lion and the Cross: Early Christianity in Victorian Novels (Ohio State University Press).
His current research and writing projects include a book on popular literary and visual images of the papacy (The Ultimate Pope), and a manuscript on the images of monks and nuns in popular fiction in the modern period (Disordering…
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Royal W.F. Rhodes, who joined the Kenyon faculty in 1979, teaches primarily the history of Christianity. His other interests include liberation theology, third world religious experience, monasticism (East and West), and religion and the arts.
His first book was Faith of Christians (Fortress Press, 1984), co-authored with the late A. Denis Baly. With co-author George McCarthy of the Sociology Department he has published Eclipse of Justice: Ethics, Economics, and the Lost Traditions of American Catholicism (Orbis, 1992), and they are completing another book on social justice movements in Ireland, Germany, and the U.S., entitled Justice Beyond Heaven. In 1995 he published The Lion and the Cross: Early Christianity in Victorian Novels (Ohio State University Press).
His current research and writing projects include a book on popular literary and visual images of the papacy (The Ultimate Pope), and a manuscript on the images of monks and nuns in popular fiction in the modern period (Disordering Love). In 1993 he received the Senior Cup at Kenyon, presented to the person who "had done most for the Senior Class and community," and in 1994 he was presented with the Trustees Award for Distinguished Teaching. He traveled to Ireland and Greece in 1997 for research, and to Jerusalem in 1998 to prepare his course, "Millennial Centers of Christianity: Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem." In 2002 he became the first incumbent of the Donald L. Rogan Professorship in Religious Studies.
Education
1979 — Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University
1971 — Bachelor of Divinity from Yale Divinity School
1968 — Bachelor of Arts from Fairfield University
Courses Recently Taught
RLST 331
The Reformation and Literature: Dogma and Dissent
RLST 331
The Reformation deeply influenced the literary development of England and transformed the religious, intellectual and cultural worlds of the 16th and 17th centuries. The long process of Reformation, shaped by late-medieval piety, the Renaissance, Continental activists and popular religion, illustrates both religious continuities and discontinuities in the works of poets and prelates, prayer books and propaganda, sermons and exorcisms, bibles and broadsheets. This interdisciplinary course will focus on a range of English literary texts, from the humanists under early Tudor monarchs to the flowering of Renaissance writers in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras, in the context of religious history, poetry, drama, prose and iconography. Writers and reformers such as More, Erasmus, Cranmer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Southwell, Herbert and Donne will be examined. This course is the same as ENGL 331.
RLST 380
Social Justice: The Ancient and Modern Traditions
RLST 380
This mid-level course will examine the development of theories of ethics and social justice from the ancient Hebrew tradition of Torah and the prophets, New Testament writers Luke and Matthew, and medieval natural law, to modern discussions about social, political and economic justice. We will explore how critical social theory has been applied within the political and economic context of modern industrial societies and how biblical and later religious teachings have been used as the basis for social ethics. Questions of justice, freedom, development, individualism and alienation will be major themes in this study of capitalism, Christianity and Marxism. Special emphasis will be on contemporary debates about the ethics of democratic capitalism from within conservative theology and philosophy and radical liberation theology. Readings will be from the Bible, Papal encyclicals, the American Catholic bishops’ letter on economics and social justice, Friedman, Wallis, Farmer, Novak, Baum, Miranda, Fromm, Pirsig, Schumacher and N. Wolf. This course is the same as SOCY 243. Prerequisite: 100-level sociology course or 100-level religious studies course or permission of instructor.
RLST 381
Meanings of Death
RLST 381
In all cultures, the idea of death and dying has shaped the imagination in myth, image and ritual. This course will explore the symbols, interpretations and practices centering on death in diverse religious traditions, historical periods and cultures. We will use religious texts (the Bible, Buddhist texts and Hindu scriptures), art, literature (Gilgamesh, Plato, Dante), psychological interpretations (Kübler-Ross) and social issues (AIDS, atomic weapons, ecological threats) to examine the questions death poses for the meaning of existence. This counts as an elective for the major. Prerequisite: sophomore standing. Offered every two years.
RLST 391
ST:Religion & Children's Lit
RLST 391
RLST 493
Individual Study
RLST 493
The department reserves individual studies to highly motivated students who are judged responsible and capable enough to work independently. Such courses might entail original research, but usually they are reading-oriented, allowing students to explore in depth topics that interest them or that supplement aspects of the major. Students may pursue individual study only if they have taken all the courses offered by the department in that particular area of the curriculum. An individual study course cannot duplicate a course or topic being concurrently offered. Exceptions to this rule are at the discretion of the instructor and department chair. Students must secure the agreement of an instructor to provide guidance and supervision of the course. The instructor and student agree on the nature of the work expected (e.g., several short papers, one long paper, an in-depth project, a public presentation, a lengthy general outline and annotated bibliography). The level should be advanced, with work on a par with a 300- or 400-level course. The student and instructor should meet on a regular basis, with the schedule to be determined by the instructor in consultation with the student. Individual studies may be taken for 0.25 or 0.5 units, at the discretion of the instructor. A maximum of 0.50 units of IS may count towards major or minor requirements in RLST department. A student is permitted to take only one 0.5-unit class of IS in the department (one 0.5-unit course or two 0.25-unit courses). A student must present a petition with compelling reasons in order to obtain special permission to take an additional IS course. Because students must enroll for individual studies by the end of the seventh class day of each semester, they should begin discussion of the proposed individual study preferably the semester before, so that there is time to devise the proposal and seek departmental approval before the established deadline. Prerequisite: GPA of at least 3.0. Exceptions (e.g., languages not taught at Kenyon are granted at the discretion of the instructor, with the approval of the department chair.)\n
Academic & Scholarly Achievements
1995
The Lion and the Cross: Early Christianity in Victorian Novels, Ohio State University Press, 1995.
1992
Eclipse of Justice: Ethics, Economics, and the Lost Traditions of American Catholicism, with co-author George McCarthy, Orbis, 1992.
1984
Faith of Christians, Fortress Press, 1984.