Deborah Savage, Ph.D.
Deborah Savage is a member of the faculty at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota where she teaches philosophy and theology and also serves as the Director of the Masters in Pastoral Ministry Program. She received her Doctorate in Religious Studies from Marquette University in 2005; her degree is in both theology and philosophy.
Dr. Savage is a student of St. Thomas Aquinas with a particular interest in investigating his thought in light of contemporary questions. Her primary research interests are in philosophical and theological anthropology, especially as a foundation for grasping the personhood of men and women, for grounding the meaning of human action, and the metaphysics of creation.. Dr. Savage is a recognized scholar of the work of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and has written and presented or published several papers on how his philosophical anthropology informs his body of work as Pope, his understanding of human work, the complementarity of man and woman, and of the dignity and vocation of women.
Dr. Savage is the co-founder of the Siena Symposium for Women, Family, and Culture, an interdisciplinary think tank at UST, organized to respond to John Paul II’s call for a new and explicitly Christian feminism. Her more recent publications include: “The Centrality of Lived Experience in Wojtyla’s Account of the Person,” Philosophical Annals, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin; “The Nature of Woman in Relation to Man: Genesis 1 and 2 Through the Lens of the Metaphysical Anthropology of St. Thomas Aquinas,” Logos, A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Winter, 2015; “The Genius of Man,” Thinking with Pope Francis: Catholic Women Reflect on Complementarity, Feminism, and the Church, (OSV Publications, February 2015). She is currently at work on a book entitled “Woman and Man” for formal consideration by Catholic University of America Press.