Rev Stephen Chase Pepper CSC

Fr Chase’s research sits at the intersection of Dante studies and Christian theology. He is interested broadly in questions about how Dante can help human beings think and speak meaningfully together about God, revelation, and creation. More specifically, he examines the participatory structures of Dante’s thought and language – the ways, that is, in which Dante treats the relationship of created beings to uncreated being, and the implications that relationship has for how we understand the ways in which created beings may share in the existence, action, and experience of one another. His doctoral research, in particular, focused on how Dante imagines human beings as participating in divine beatitude by way of how they intercede with and for each other (i.e., how they pray for each other’s good). He believes that research conducted in this vein has the potential not only to deepen the ways that theologians and Dante scholars alike understand Dante’s work, building bridges between academic disciplines and methodologies, but also to envision fresh modalities of human community and cooperation within and beyond the academy.