Karen Park is a professor of theology and religious studies at St. Norbert College, and has been a member of the college community since 2008. As an English major and art history minor in college, she has always been drawn to the literary and artistic expressions of faith, and sees theology as primarily a creative endeavor.
Her goal as a college professor is to encourage students to become aware of – and responsible for – their own beliefs and assumptions in order to understand themselves and their experiences within the vast matrix of Christian history and tradition.
THRS 117 Theological Foundations
THRS 280 Introducing Christian Traditions
THRS 320 The Christian Tradition
THRS 221 Religion in America
THRS 316 Who is Jesus?
THRS 315 Mary through the Ages
THRS 338 Christian Mysticism
MTS 502 Historical Theology
B.A. – Lawrence University (English Literature)
M.A. – The Divinity School of the University of Chicago (Religious Studies)
Ph.D. – The Divinity School of the University of Chicago (History of Christianity)
History of Christianity
History of Catholicism in America
Sacred space and material religion
Marian shrines and Catholic devotionalism
American Patroness: Meaning Making at US Shrines to the Virgin Mary (Fordham University Press, 2023)