Michael Patrick Murphy, PhD
Director, Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage and Senior Lecturer
Michael Patrick Murphy, Ph.D., is Director of Loyola’s Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage. He earned his doctorate in Theology, Literature, and Philosophy from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, an MA in English from San Francisco State University, and undergraduate degrees in English and Great Books from the University of San Francisco. His research interests are in Theology and Literature, Sacramental Theology, Systematic Theology, and the socio-political cultures of Catholicism—but he also writes about issues in eco-theology, new media ecologies, and social ethics. Dr. Murphy, a Senior Lecturer in the Theology Department, is a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow. His first book, A Theology of Criticism: Balthasar, Postmodernism, and the Catholic Imagination (Oxford), was named a "Distinguished Publication" in 2008 by the American Academy of Religion. His shorter, occasional pieces have been published in America, NCR, First Things, Dappled Things, and The Huffington Post, among other venues. He is currently at work on a monograph entitled The Incarnational Realists: Catholic Fiction, Poetry, and Film 1965-2025.
Mike is an experienced center director and senior academic leader with a distinguished record of scholarship and teaching—and of building, stewarding, and cultivating the projects, promise, and potential of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. He has conceived, launched, and directed high-profile academic programming, including international conferences, interdisciplinary symposia, faculty seminars, public lecture series, and student research initiatives. Signature accomplishments include serving on the leadership team of the Biennial Conference on the Catholic Imagination, co-founding and leading The Way Forward ecclesial gatherings, creating, editing, and publishing Nexus: Conversations on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (a digital-age journal that amplifies and publishes scholarly dialogue taking place in the Hank Center); leading faculty formation initiatives tied directly to Loyola’s strategic plans, and co-founding and serving on the leadership team of the National Catholic Studies Consortium. He continues to work with the Vatican on the Loyola led Building Bridges Initiative—and collaborates with several dicasteries on other projects. Mike has also overseen faculty research grants, undergraduate research and interdisciplinary programs, and collaborative projects connecting theology, literature, ethics, media, and ecology with the Catholic intellectual, artistic, and social traditions. A frequent contributor to public media, Mike has appeared on CNN, BBC, NPR, Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, and PBS among other venues.
Education
A doctorate in Theology, Literature, and Philosophy from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, an MA in English from San Francisco State University, and undergraduate degrees in English and Great Books from the University of San Francisco
Research Interests
Mike’s scholarly work explores the idea that the Catholic intellectual tradition is not only an essential resource for content but is also one with a deeply ingrained interdisciplinary method as well. With this theoretical framework in mind, Mike engages the following fields and subfields as projects in constructive, integral theology:
- Theological Aesthetics/Hans Urs von Balthasar
- The Catholic Literary Tradition
- The Literary and Political Cultures of Catholicism
- Religion and Mimetic Theory/ R. Girard
- Digital Cultures/New Media Ecologies
- Jesuit/Ignatian traditions and pedagogy
- Systematic Theology (Christology, Trinitarian Theology)
- Sacramental Theology
- Ressourcement Theology
- Christian Spirituality
- Vatican II Studies
Publications/Research Listings
"Technologies of the Incarnation: Catholic Cosmotechnics and New Horizons for Liturgical Participation" in Catholic Cosmotechnics in the AI Age (forthcoming from St. Augustine's Press, spring, 2026)
“Tinderization and Transcendence: Girard, McLuhan, and the Apocalyptic Imagination" in Theological Discourses on Social Media, Christopher B. Barnett, Clark J. Elliston, and Trevor B. Williams, eds. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, New York, NY: Routledge, 2025
“Panem et Circenses: Michel Houellebecq, Submission, and the Liturgies of Spiritual Exhaustion" in The Call of Literature, David Lonsdale, ed. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, New York, NY: Routledge, 2025
“Cultivating Catholic Studies and Charism through Co-Curricular Programs: The Annual John Courtney Murray, S.J., Forum @LUC,” in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, McKenzie and Sherry, eds., Volume 26, Number 5 (August, 2023)
this need to dance/this need to kneel: Denise Levertov and the Poetics of Faith, with Melissa Bradshaw, Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2019
A Theology of Criticism: Balthasar, Postmodernism, and the Catholic Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008
Awards
Finalist, Ignatius of Loyola Award, LUC Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy, 2016
Finalist, Kolvenbach Award, LUC Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy, 2015
Alpha Sigma Nu, Centenary Faculty Inductee, 1WRXA Supermarket - Buy now Replacement trigger assembly for hunting bow Lightweight, 2014-2015
1WRXA Supermarket - Buy now Replacement trigger assembly for hunting bow Lightweight USGA Teaching Award: Faculty Member of the Year, 2013-2014
1WRXA Supermarket - Buy now Replacement trigger assembly for hunting bow Lightweight Student Diversity and Multicultural Affairs Diversity Award, 2013- 2014
CCIH Fellowship: $6,000 Research Grant for Vatican II at 50
USF Distinguished Adjunct Nominee, 2011 and 2012
2011 American Academy of Religion Distinguished Book: 2008