PETER CAJKA
PhD Candidate Boston College History Department
Stokes Hall, Office S635
330.687.3170
Cajkap@bc.edu
Graduate Fellow, Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy, Boston College, 2014‐2015 Boston College, Ph.D. Candidate, 2010‐Present. Dissertation: (working title) The Revival of Conscience in American History, 1939‐1991
Dissertation Committee: James O’Toole (adviser), Charles Gallagher SJ, Devin Pendas, and John McGreevy. Comprehensive exams passed with distinction, (December 2012). Major Fields: Religion in America, Global History: Religion, Nation, and Modernity
Minor Fields: Transnational Intellectual History, U.S. Postwar Political History Marquette University, M.A. in History, 2008‐2010. Passed comprehensive exams, Spring 2010. University of Dayton, B.A. in History, 2004‐2008.
Magna Cum Laude Additional Training Participant, International Interdisciplinary workshop on “Religion and Secularism in Modern Democracies” with Professor Charles Taylor. Held at the Forum Scientiarum in Tübingen University in Germany, June 3‐7, 2013. GRANTS AND AWARDS Clough Fellowship, 2014‐2015. Summer Research Travel Grant, American Catholic Historical Association, Summer 2014. Dorothy Mohler Research Grant, The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, the Catholic University of America, Summer 2014. Summer Research Grant, Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Summer 2014. Junior Scholar Research Grant, Boston College Center for Christian Jewish Learning, Summer 2013. Manning/Gelfand Summer Research Fellowship, Boston College History Department, 2013.
Catholic Press Conference, Best Feature Article in a Scholarly Magazine, 2011. Graduate and Professional Student Travel Award/Way Klinger College of Arts and Sciences Travel Award, Marquette University, 2009. The Society of Automotive Historians, 2008 Richard Scharchburg Student Paper Award in Automotive History, 2008. The Dr. George Ruppell Award of Excellence in Historical Research, 2008.
The Caroline Beauregard Memorial Award of Excellence to the Outstanding Junior Majoring in History, 2007. PEER‐REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS “The National Cash Register Company and the Neighborhoods: New Perspectives on Relief in the Dayton Flood of 1913,” Ohio History 118 (2011): 49‐71. “Riding with St. Paul in the Passenger Side: the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Enters the Automobile Age, 1920‐1965,” American Catholic Studies 121 (Summer 2010):65‐93.
Awarded first place in the category “Best Feature Article in a Scholarly Magazine” at the 2011 Catholic Press Conference. PAPERS AND INVITED LECTURES “The Revival of Conscience in American History,” to be presented at the University of Dayton, a joint meeting of the History Department, Religious Studies Department, and Catholic Intellectual Tradition Forum, scheduled for Fall 2015. “Freedom of Conscience as Human Right: Amnesty International’s Prisoner of Conscience Campaign, 1977‐1991” to be presented at Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Spring 2015. “Building a Responsible Autonomy: The Turn to Conscience in American Catholic History, 1968‐
1980” presented at the American Catholic Historical Association Annual Meeting, January 5, 2015.
“The Turn to Conscience in American History, 1939‐1991,” presented at the Boston College History Department Workshop, November 7, 2014. “Suffering for Conscience’ Sake: The Pain of American Freedom, 1939‐1980,” presented at Holy Cross College, Pain and Suffering in American Culture, November 14, 2014. “Consistently Askew: The Theologies of John Ford, S.J., 1944‐1968,” presented at Crossings and Dwellings: Restored Jesuits, Women Religious, American Experience, 1814‐2014, November 16‐18, 2014. “Set Apart and a Setting Apart: Conscience in World War II America, 1939‐1945,” presented at Intellectual Hinterlands, 25‐27, June 2014. “Liturgical Politics: Or, How Catholics Make Traditions,” presented at “Ways of Knowing”: A Graduate Conference on Religion at Harvard Divinity School, October 26‐27, 2012. “More than Anticommunism: Materialism and the Death of Catholic Dualism, 1948‐1969.” Presented at the 2012 Meeting of the Conference of Faith and History, October 4‐6, 2012. “Beyond Mortification to the Politics of Human Rights: Paul VI’s Abolition of Fasting in the American Context,” presented at The American Historical Association, Jan. 5‐8, 2012. “The Disembodiment of American Catholicism: The Lenten Reformation, 1935‐1985,” presented at 11th Annual Florida State University Religious Studies Graduate Symposium, February 17‐19, 2012. “The Making of a Modern American Pilgrimage: Holy Hill Shrine, 1880‐1906,” presented at the Spring 2011 Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, April 14‐16, 2011. “From Miracle to Meditation: American Consumer Culture and the Transformation of Catholic Devotion at Holy Hill Shrine, 1880‐1960,” presented at Capitalism in Action! Harvard’s Third Annual Graduate Conference on the History of American Capitalism, March 3‐5, 2011. “A Pilgrimage of Brevity to a Center of Splendor: The Modernization of the Hajj, 1925‐1980,” presented at the University of Maine Graduate Student Conference, October 1‐2, 2010. “Materialistic Consumerism as Exaltation of the Individual: Papal Critiques of Western Consumer Culture, 1878‐2004,” presented at the University of Illinois at Chicago History Graduate Society’s Third Annual Graduate Student History Conference, April, 10, 2010. “’I Still Have my Smile’: The Triumph of Consumer Culture in the Dayton Flood of 1913,” Presented at Phi Alpha Theta 2010 Biennial Convention, San Diego, January 9‐12, 2010.
“Riding with St. Paul in the Passenger Side and the Creation of Consumer Sites: The Archdiocese of Milwaukee Enters the Automobile Age, 1920‐1965.” Presented at Baylor University’s third annual Symposium on Faith and Culture, Secularization and Revival: The Fate of Religion in Modern Intellectual History, Baylor University, October 8‐11, 2009. “University Man Turned Urban Politician: A New Perspective on Richard T. Frankensteen & the Politics of Building a Labor Community,” presented at the Loyola University Chicago History Graduate Conference, Loyola University of Chicago, April 24‐25, 2009.
“Consumers, Cadillacs, and Civil Rights: The Social and Cultural Impact of the Automobile in Ebony, 1945‐1965,” presented at the University of Alabama Graduate Conference on Power and Struggle, University of Alabama March 6‐7, 2009. BOOK REVIEWS
Paula Kane, Sister Thorn and Catholic Mysticism in Modern America, in Journal of Jesuit Studies, forthcoming Summer 2015. Steven Avella, Crisis and Confidence: A History of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, review essay in American Catholic Studies, forthcoming Summer 2015. ONLINE PRESENCE “A more catholic American Catholic Historical Association,” written for the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, appearing on the Religion in American History Blog, January 21, 2015. “In Search of Conscience: A Report from the Field,” American Catholic Historical Association Website, forthcoming Spring 2015. “Why Turn to the Conscience?” Religion in American History Blog, posted August 31, 2014. “’The Problem of Religion: Faith and Agency in History’: A Report from a Conference at Boston College,” Exiles from Eden: Lilly Fellow Blog Program, posted August 8, 2013. ENCYLOPEDIA ENTRIES “Holy Hill,” “Maria Stein Chapel,” and “St. Anthony Relic Chapel,” in Miracles: an Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Supernatural Events from Antiquity to the Present, under contract, forthcoming 2014.
TEACHING
Teaching Assistant, Boston College Department of History, American History I and American History II, September‐May, 2014‐2015. Teaching Assistant, Boston College Department of History. Democracy, Rights, and Empire: 1500‐Present. September‐May, 2012‐2013. Teaching Assistant, Boston College Department of History. CORE Sequence: 1500‐Present. September‐May, 2011‐2012. Teaching Assistant, Marquette University. The History of Western Civilization: Ancient Greece to the Twentieth Century, September‐May, 2009‐2010. Supplemental Instructor, University of Dayton, West in the Wider World, Fall Semester 2006, Summer Semester 2007 and 2008.
REFERENCES
James M. O’Toole, Clough Millennium Professor of History, Boston College.
Email: James.O’Toole@bc.edu
Phone: (617) 552‐8456
Kevin Kenny, Professor of History, Boston College
Email: Kevin.Kenny@bc.edu
Phone: (617) 552‐1196
Virginia Reinburg, Associate Professor of History, Boston College
Email: Virginia.Reinburg@bc.edu Phone: 617‐552‐8207
Stephen Schloesser, Professor of History, Loyola University Chicago, Email: sschloesser@luc.edu
Phone: 773.508.2217
Devin Pendas, Associate Professor of History, Boston College
Email: Devin.Pendas@bc.edu Phone: 617‐552‐6881