Kathryn Barush

Thomas E. Bertelsen Jr. Professor of Art History and Religion

Core Doctoral Faculty

At the GTU since

2014

Graduate Theological Union Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University (JST-SCU)Berkeley Art and Interreligious Pilgrimage Project

Dr. Kathryn Barush is an art historian whose teaching and research explores the dynamic ways that the arts can shape culture and community.  She holds a D.Phil. and M.St., both from Wadham College, University of Oxford, and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College.  Her recent book, Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience (New York: Bloomsbury) has been praised as being ‘well-written, creatively constructed, and accessible’ and for its multidisciplinary approach engaging ‘material religion, multiculturalism, history, pluralism, dialogical encounter, spiritual expression, disability, illness, dying, visual arts, and music.’ It was the recipient of the 2022 Art & Religion Book Prize through the American Academy of Religion and the Borsch-Rast Prize and Lectureship.  Her current research, at the intersection of the arts and science, examines how art-infused pilgrimages can be used in integrative health settings. In addition, she is working on two new projects: an edited volume with Rachel H. Smith on how contemporary art can be imagined as a pilgrimage and site and a book project on plantlore and pilgrimage from the Middle Ages to today.   

Prior to this current position, Dr. Barush was a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC where she contributed to a Mellon-funded digital humanities initiative. Her research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, the Luce Foundation, the Bannan Forum, and the George Greenia Fellowship for Pilgrimage Studies.

Dr. Barush is the founding director of the Berkeley Art and Interreligious Pilgrimage Project. Launched in the summer of 2022, it features pilgrimage routes curated by socially-engaged contemporary artists and scholars and seeks to link sacred landscapes the world over to neighborhoods, gardens, and backyards as a way to connect as a global community.

Degrees and Certifications

DPhil, University of Oxford, 2012
MSt/MA, University of Oxford, 2007
BA, Sarah Lawrence College, 2003

Research and Teaching Interests

History of Art and Architecture
Material Culture of Religion
Pilgrimage Studies

Selected Publications

Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience (New York: Bloomsbury Visual Culture, August 2021, PB 2023), 286 pages.

Religion and the Arts Book Award, American Academy of Religion, 2022
Recipient, Borsch-Rast Book Prize and Lectureship

Art and the Sacred Journey in Britain, 1790- 1850 (London: Routledge, 2016 PB 2019), 278 pages.

Book of the Year list, Times Literary Supplement
Finalist, AAR Best First Book in the History of Religions

‘Contemporary Art as Pilgrimage and Site: Ambrosio’s As Far as the Eye Can Travel Zine Project’ in Ronald Bernier and Rachel Smith (eds.), Religion and Contemporary Art (New York: Routledge), 2023.

 ‘The Ghosts of Past and Future along England’s Old Way,’ in Ian MacIntosh and Daniel Olsen (eds.), New Routes and Trails (Bern: Peter Lang), 2023.

 ‘Art as Pilgrimage, Pilgrimage as Art’ (with Hung Pham, SJ) in André Brouillette and Jeff Bloechel (eds.), Pilgrimage as Spiritual Practice: A Handbook for Teachers, Wayfarers, and Guides (Minneapolis: Fortress), August 2022, pp. 61-82.

 ‘The Afterlife of Becket in the Modern Imagination,’ Journal of the British Archaeological Association, vol. 173, issue 1, August 2020, pp. 204-217.

 ‘As coronavirus curtails travel, backyard pilgrimages become the way to a spiritual journey,’ The Conversation, August 2020.

 ‘No Boots Required,’ The Brooklyn Rail, March 2020.

‘Labyrinths as an Embodied Pilgrimage Experience: an Ignatian Case Study’ in Christopher Ocker and Susanna Elm (eds.), Material Christianity: Western Religions and the Agency of Things (Cham: Springer), 2020, pp. 197-222.

‘Visions of Mortality,’ Apollo: The International Art Magazine, Col. CLXXVII No. 605, January, 2013, pp. 56-62.

Other Projects and Collaborations

Virtual pilgrimages (Wells Cathedral Pilgrimage in a Day and Glastonbury Pilgrimage in a Day), interactive websites and GPX Map app, in collaboration with the British Pilgrimage Trust (June 2020)
A Pilgrim in the Park: Sacred Space in Lewis Miller’s “Guide to Central Park”, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring, 2013). 
- Part of a special issue sponsored by the A.W. Mellon Foundation Digital Humanities and Art History initiative.
- Includes a fully annotated digital edition of Miller’s sketchbook and interpretive essays (Barush and O’Malley, eds. with E. Pugh, J. Ruse, and C. Tompkins)
William Godwin’s Diary: Reconstructing a Social and Political Culture 1788-1836  (Oxford: Oxford Digital Library, Victoria Myers, David O’Shaughnessy, and Mark Philp [eds.] (November, 2010)
- As a research assistant for the project, Dr. Barush was responsible for various entries as well as editing & coding the resource 
- Project sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust, the University of Oxford Department of Politics and International Relations, and the Bodleian Libraries. Winner of the annual award for Digital Resources from the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.