Jane Ellen Ackerman

Associate Professor of ReligionChapman Hall 211
918-631-2290
jane-ackerman@utulsa.com

 

Education and Degrees Earned

  • Ph.D. in Spanish Literature, University of Kentucky, 1982.  Dissertation: "The Literary Tradition of the Song of Songs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Hispanic Poetry".
  • M.A. in Spanish Literature, University of Kentucky, 1974.
  • B.A. with Honors in Spanish, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1970

Areas of Research Focus

Current Interests

  • Continental mystical writing
  • Medieval Christian monasticism
  • The Carmelite order
  • European thought about Native Americans and America.

Previous Teaching Experience

  • 1983-1989 Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of Foreign Languages and Comparative Literature, The University of Tulsa
  • 1980-1983 Assistant Professor of Spanish, Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan
  • 1978-1980 English Foreign Language Instructor, Consejo Nacional de Ciencias y Tecnología, México City, México Graduate Teaching Assistantships

Professional Affiliations

  • Affiliate Faculty Member, Carmelite Institute and Washington Theological Union, Washington, D.C., 1997-98, 2003-present, delivering a distance-learning course on the early Carmelite order in their curriculum from time to time.
  • Affiliate Researcher, Sarah Irwin Library and Archive, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2010-2011.

Courses Taught at TU

  • Intro to the Hebrew Bible (REL 2013)
  • Paul and the Early Church (REL 3503)
  • Mystical Literature (REL 3523)
  • Imagining Native Americans (REL 3973)
  • The Council of Nicea (REL 4093)
  • Intro to the Middle Ages (HON 1013)

Awards & Recognition

  • 2009 Summer Research Grant, Gilcrease Museum
  • Member, Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome, an international body of scholars sponsored by the Carmelite Order, 2003-present
  • Subvention Grant, Spanish National Government, for the publication of The Living Flame of Love, 1993
  • Excellence in Teaching Award, Henry Kendall College, Tulsa University, 1992
  • Participant, Academic and Pastoral Dialog on Jewish and Christian Relatedness to Scripture, Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, St. John's University, 1990-1993
  • Ford Foundation Grant, 1988
  • NEH Summer Seminar Grant, Fordham University, 1988 (declined)
  • Solicitation of the articles, "The Theme of Mary's Power in the Milagros de Nuestra Señora" and "Repetition and Expansion in the Two Redactions of the 'Cántico espiritual'" for inclusion in the Milá and Fontanals Library (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain), 1988
  • Distinguished Teacher, University of Tulsa, 1986

Publications

  • The Difficult Icon: John of the Cross
    Companion to Spanish Mysticism, ed. Hilaire Kallendorf (Leiden:Brill 2009)
  • Elijah Prophet of Carmel
    ICS Publications, Washington, D.C., 2003).
  • Teresa and Her Sisters
    (in The Mystical Gesture: Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Spiritual Culture in Honor of Mary E. Giles, ed. R. Boenig (Aldershot, UK and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Press, 2000).