THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Paul Cato is a Black feminist scholar who studies how Black Americans have contributed to love’s history, theorization, and politics. He is especially interested in religion's role in these interventions and how society can address contemporary injustice using these Black ideas about love.
He is currently an Assistant Professor of Black Studies at Providence College and an instructor in the University of Chicago Basic Program. At Providence, he teaches courses on Black religion, philosophy, and politics and supports the school's growing Black student population. At the University of Chicago, Paul has worked to introduce works of Black literature and thought into the Basic Program's well-established curriculum of Great Books and the canon.
In addition to his research, Paul is heavily involved in the fight against racism and ableism. Paul is also a co-founder of The Black Love Studies Institute research collective, a founding member of an international epilepsy awareness organization, and an active alumnus of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and diversity program.
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Education: B.A. in Religion and Black Studies, Swarthmore College, 2014
Interests: James Baldwin; Love Studies; Intellectual History; Religion, Literature, and Arts; African American Literature; Black Cultural Studies; Modern Religious Thought; Affect & Emotion; Audre Lorde; Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dissertation title: “Talk of Fire, Invisibility, and the Erotic: James Baldwin, African American Literature, and the Theological-Political Discourse of Active Love”
Committee: Joel Isaac, Ken Warren, Richard Rosengarten, and Michael Thomas.
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