The Legacies of Sr. Madeleva Wolff, CSC

Sr. Mary Madeleva Wolff, CSC (18871964) was the third president of Saint Marys College in Notre Dame, Indiana and an influential figure in American Catholic religious life, theological education, womens higher education, and poetry. Sixty years after her death, Madeleva continues to be celebrated as an influential figure in multiple arenas. Some memorializations cast her as a wise spiritual mother whose insights should be mined for religious life today. Others know her as a unifying persona or mascot for the institutions she spearheaded. Still others venerate her as a martyr who sacrificed her personal talents and interests for worthy religious causes. The essays in this multi-disciplinary volume explore the various and sometimes disparate roles Madeleva embodied in life and occupies in the collective memory of American Catholics today. Its authors ask: What are the lasting legacies of Sr. Madeleva? What do these legacies tell us about the communities that continue to commemorate her? And what can Madelevas legacies teach us about navigating the realities of todays world? Together, these authors offer inventive perspectives on the rich and complex legacies of Sr. Madeleva as well as American Catholic life today.Jessica Coblentz, Susan Mancino