Collection

Fox, Matthew Collection

Span Dates: 1964-2024
Bulk Dates:
Volume: 40 linear feet in 64 boxes

Description

This collection contains 64 boxes of correspondence, handwritten notes, newspaper and magazine articles, promotional flyers, survey responses, research materials, manuscript drafts, and calendars related to Matthew Fox’s multi-decade career as a theologian and activist. The collection also holds 35 boxes of audiovisual materials, including audio cassettes, CDs, DATs, DVDs, film reels, photographs, and video cassettes, primarily documenting events and speaking engagements feautirng Matthew Fox. These materials range in origin from the early 1960s to the present. Unique materials include: correspondence from figures like Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Lama Tsomo, Lawrence Wright, and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI,) early draft notes from Matthew Fox’s many published and unpublished works, documents providing background for Fox’s expulsion from the Dominican Order in 1994, and personal journals ranging from the beginning of Fox’s spiritual journey to the present. Materials in the collection reflect Fox’s enduring career as a theologian as he moved from the Roman Catholic Church to the Anglican Communion, and Fox’s work as a professor and spiritual teacher at institutions ranging from Holy Names and Loyola Universities to Stanford, the Academy for the Love of Learning, and Fox’s own University of Creation Spirituality. The collection also highlights Fox’s work in youth outreach and spiritual engagement through educational programs like YELLAWE (Youth and Elder Learning Laboratory for Ancestral Wisdom Education) and the Cosmic Mass, an alternative form of worship meant to engage young audiences and help return modern Christianity to its pre-modern mythic traditions. This collection will serve of most use to researchers with an interest in Catholic theology and history, climate activism, gender justice activism, social justice movements and their evolution from the 1970s into the present, religious progressivism in the United States, theology and Christian philosophy, ecumenism, the Roman Catholic Church and its internal politics, the relationship between religion and politics in the United States, early LGBTQ rights advocacy (including the AIDS epidemic,) Creation Spirituality, liberation theology, and deep ecumenism.

Hist/Bio Note

Timothy James "Matthew" Fox is an American priest and theologian born in 1940, in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1958 he matriculated at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and two years later entered the novitiate for formal training as a Dominican near Winona, Minnesota, as “Matthew”. After taking vows, Fox went on to Chicago to the Dominican House of Studies and after his final vows, Fox went on to Dominican House of Studies in Dubuque, Iowa and later to Paris. He received masters degrees in both philosophy and theology from the Aquinas Institute of Philosophy and Theology and later earned a Doctorate of Spiritual Theology from the Institut Catholique de Paris where he formulated Creation Spirituality. Fox taught at a series of Catholic universities, In 1976, at Mundelein College (now part of Loyola University) he started the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality (ICCS), a master's program in Creation Spirituality. After a prolonged controversy with the Vatican about original sin, Matthew Fox accepted expulsion from the Dominican Order and in 1993 became a priest in the Episcopal Church. In 1996, Fox founded the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, California, and in 1999 affiliated with the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Finding Aid

An online finding aid is available.
https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/2603/collection_organization

Location

This large collection is housed at the UNiversity of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections 1720 Pleasant Street 184 UCB Boulder Colorado 80309 United States
https://libraries.colorado.edu/libraries-collections/rare-distinctive/research-visiting

Tags

Catholic (Roman) | Author/editor | Theology