CORRIN, Jay P(atrick) 1943-

PERSONAL: Born December 18, 1943, in Duluth, MN; son of John J. and Patricia M. Corrin; married Nancy Jean Kuch, December 30, 1967.

Education: Michigan State University, B.A., 1966; University of Hawaii—Manoa, M.A., 1968; Boston University, Ph. D., 1976.

ADDRESSES: Office—Division of Social Science, Boston University, 871 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215. E-mail—jckuch@bu.edu.

CAREER: U.S. Peace Corps, Washington, DC, English teacher with a preparatory school in Misurata, Libya, 1968-69; Boston University, Boston, MA, assistant professor of liberal arts, 1976-77, assistant professor of social science, 1977-81, associate professor, beginning 1981, then professor and chair of Division of Social Science.

MEMBER: American Historical Association, Association of General and Liberal Studies, Chesterton Society, New England Historical Association.

WRITINGS:

G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc: The Battle against Modernity, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 1981.

(With June Grasso and Michael Kort) Modernization and Revolution in China, M. E. Sharpe (Armonk, NY), 1997, 3rd edition published as Modernization and Revolution in China: From the Opium Wars to World Power, 2004.

Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 2002.

Contributor to journals, including Catholic Historical Review.

SIDELIGHTS: Jay P. Corrin once told CA: "I became interested in G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc because they were two of the most prolific and versatile writers in the English-speaking world and also, in their day, the best known. Yet no book attempted to explain their social and political philosophy or assess its impact on modern thought. 'Distributism,' their philosophy, is not easy to define. It was not simply an economic theory but an approach to life that called for a return to a small-scale society where the individual could experience a close sense of involvement with his community and where he could reach his full potential as a creative being by working with his hands and his mind. This social philosophy was influenced by the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum, which castigated the evils of both unrestrained capitalism and socialism and recognized small proprietorship as a prerequisite for a just and stable society. It is in this sense that distributism gave battle to 'modernity,' since it took issue with the social and psychological tendencies generated when society shifted from a rural base with peasant labor to an urban society based on proletarian and professional labor. As a socio-political philosophy, distributism has had enormous influence (especially on post-industrial thinking, the 'small is beautiful' movement, neo-liberalism, and so forth).

"My next major project was to study Anglo-American Catholic intellectuals and their commitment to social action as called for in the papal encyclicals from Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno. These labor encyclicals were a response to the social disruptions caused by industrialism, capitalism, and socialism. A corporative government was recommended as the best means to heal the social ills produced by these changes. In particular, I wanted to explore how the encyclicals informed the reactions of Catholic intellectuals to the turmoils of the 1930s and 1940s. For example: Was there a 'Catholic political view' that emerged during these decades? If so, what relationship did it have with the labor encyclicals? If not, what positions developed concerning fascism and social and economic reform? Were the differences of opinion in Catholic circles derivatives of nineteenth-century left- and right-wing political orientations? Is there any relationship between Catholic social thought and liberation theology in the Third World today? Was there a cross-fertilization of ideas between American and English Catholic intellectuals during this time? Finally, to what extent did these experiences inform a Catholic critique of modernity?"