Dr Lydia Schumacher

Dr Lydia SchumacherBritish Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in Theology

Dr Lydia Schumacher, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in Theology, Junior Research Fellow in Theology

BA Philosophy (2005); MTh Historical Theology (2006); PhD Theology (2009)

I took up my current position in September 2011. In the previous academic year, I joined the Theology Faculty at Oxford while a research fellow at St Stephen’s house. During the 2009-10 academic year, I conducted postdoctoral research at the Institut Catholique de Paris, France, on completing my postgraduate work at the University of Edinburgh. From 2009-2011, I was also associated with the University of St Andrews as a research fellow and co-editor for the Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine. I hail from the United States.

Research Interests

My two main areas of interest are medieval theology and philosophy (especially Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and thirteenth-century Franciscans; I also maintain a strong interest in the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical traditions that are at the background of medieval thought); and theories of knowledge and knowledge of God.

Currently I am working on projects in these two areas:

  • Alexander of Hales and the Origins of the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition
  • Creedal Reasoning: A Theological Theory of Knowledge

Teaching

In the past, I have given tutorials and seminars in the areas of ancient philosophy; medieval philosophy/theology; history of philosophy; philosophy of religion; systematic and philosophical theology.

Selected Publications

  1. Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).
  2. The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (4 vols), co-editor and author of three articles on ‘Bonaventure’, ‘Divine Illumination’, and ‘The Franciscan Order’ (OUP, 2013).
  3. ‘Rethinking Recollection and Plato’s Theory of Forms’, Lyceum 11:2, Spring 2010.
  4. ‘The Lost Legacy of Anselm’s Argument: Rethinking the Purpose of Proofs for the Existence of God’, Modern Theology, January 2011.
  5. ‘The Theo-Logic of St Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge by Divine Illumination’, Augustinian Studies, February 2011.
  6. ‘L’itinéraire de l’esprit vers Dieu de saint Bonaventure: une remontée augustinienne traditionnelle?’, Etudes Franciscaines, June 2011.
  7. ‘The Logic of Faith: Prolegomena to a Theological Theory of Knowledge’, New Blackfriars, August 2011.
  8. ‘Bonaventure’s Journey of the Mind into God: A Traditional Augustinian Ascent?’, Medieovo 37 (special issue on Augustine’s De Triniate and its Fortune in Medieval Philosophy) 37, 2012.