Professor Renee Kohler-Ryan

Deputy Executive Dean
BA(Liberal Arts - Phil), Master in Philosophy (Lic.), PhD

Email: renee.kohler-ryan@nd.edu.au
Phone: 02 8204 4171

  • Biography

    Professor Köhler-Ryan has been with the University since 2011. Previous to this she was a researcher and academic assistant at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, where she earned a PhD in Philosophy under the supervision of Professor William Desmond. She teaches Aesthetics, Philosophy of the Human Person, and Political Philosophy, as well as courses that emphasise the importance of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. She has published Companions in the Between: Augustine, Desmond, and their Communities of Love, and has a published article on Edith Stein, with a forthcoming book on Stein's Essays on Woman. (2026).   Professor Köhler-Ryan also designed the Graduate Certificate in Catholic Thought for the formation of teachers who want to teach Studies in Catholic Thought.

    Professor Köhler-Ryan is on the Board of Directors of Mary Aikenhead Educational Ministries and is a member of the Mission and Identity Committee for Sydney Catholic Schools. She serves on the Reference Group for Studies in Catholic Thought, which reports to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. She was also a delegate for the Plenary Council of Australia and is a non-bishop member for Oceania for the Synod on Synodality (2023-2024).

  • Teaching Areas

    • Philosophy of the Human Person
    • Political Philosophy
    • Medieval Philosophy
    • Faith and Reason
    • Philosophical Aesthetics
    • Pilgrimage
    • Moral Philosophy

  • Research Expertise and Supervision

    • Philosophical Aesthetics - of Art and Architecture
    • History of Philosophy (particularly Medieval)
    • Political Philosophy
    • Catholic Intellectual Tradition, including Literature
    • Ethics
    • Philosophy of Culture

  • Books

    • Editor: Living the Catholic Tradition: Philosophical and Theological Considerations (Franciscan University Press, 2019)
    • Companions in the Between: Augustine, William Desmond and their Communities of Love (Wipf and Stock (Pickwick), 2020)
    • Forthcoming: Companion to Edith Stein's Essays on Woman (Rowman & Littlefield, 2026)

  • Book Chapters

    • "Why Secularism is No Option for a Christian Citizen: Augustine’s Analysis of Love in the City” , in Love in Christian Legal Thought, edited by Zachary Calo, Joshua Neo, Keith Thompson and (Routledge, 2021)
    • “Longing for the True and the Beautiful: An Augustinian Approach to Teacher Formation, in Formation for Teachers in Catholic Schools: Challenges and Opportunities in a New Era, edited by Leonard Franchi & Richard Rymarz (Springer, 2021)
    • “Shouts and Whispers: What Kind of Martyr Should a Catholic Writer Be?” Chapter in: Faith and Reason: Applications to Contemporary Problems. Eds. Sandra Lynch and Nigel Zimmermann, (Wipf & Stock, 2021)
    • (co-authored with Professor Sandra Lynch) “Values Education and Christological Personhood: Philosophical and Practical Implications”, Proceedings of the COMIUCAP conference Civil Society and Human Formation: Philosophy’s Role in a Renewed Understanding of the Meaning of Education Edited by John Ozolins, Routledge Press (2017)
    • “How is Mary a Seat of Wisdom? A Spatial Exploration” Chapter in: Mariology at the Beginning of the Third Millenium, edited by Kevin Wagner et. al. (Wipf and Stock, 2017)
    • “Thinking Transcendence, Transgressing the Mask: Desmond Pondering Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, In: Christopher Ben Simpson, ed, Desmond and Theology: The Donation of William Desmond to Philosophy, South Bend IN: University of Notre Dame Press (2016)
    • (co-authored with Sydney Palmer) “‘What Do You Know of My Heart?’ The Role of Sense and Sensibility in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” Chapter 2 in: The Philosophy of Ang Lee, Robert Arp et. al. (eds), University Press of Kentucky (2013) 41- 63.
    • "No Block Creation’: Good and Evil in William Desmond’s Augustinian Philosophy of Elemental Order,” Chapter in: To Discern Creation in a Scattering World, Frederiek Depoortre and Jacques Haers (Eds) Leuven: Peeters Press (2013) 207-220.
    • “The Beginning that is Already and End: Finding the Significance of Labyrinthine Travel,” Chapter in: Philosophers of Travel, Alex Norman (Ed.), Cambridge Scholars Press, (2013)
    • “Communicating the elemental cosmos: The Hereford Mappa Mundi, sacred space and the city.” In L. Gomez & W. Van Herck (eds.), The Sacred in the City. London, UK: Continuum (2012) 141-160
    • “An Archaeological Ethics: Augustine, Desmond, and Digging Back to the Agapeic Origin,” In: Between System and Poetics: Themes in the Work of William Desmond, Ed. Thomas Kelly. Ashgate, (2007) 125-137
    • “Elemental microcosms: Sacred Space and the City,” In: The Sacred and the Metropolis, Ed. Walter Van Herck and Liliana Gomez, Continuum Press, 2012; 141-160.

  • Journal Articles and Proceedings

    • “Augustine Pulling and Stretching: Responding to Charles Taylor’s Account of Interior Order”, Studia Patristica, (Peeters, 2021)
    • " ‘The Hour of Woman’ and Edith Stein: Catholic new feminist responses to Essentialism.” Religions, 11 (6). (2020)
    • “The Splendor of Transfiguration at the Heart of the Christian Life: The Influence of Pope Saint Paul VI on Veritatis Splendor.” Nova et Vetera, 18 (1), 255-278. (2020)
    • “Trees in the Garden: Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, and the Order of Justice”, Special Issue: “Gardens of Justice”, of The Australian Feminist Law Journal: A Critical Legal Journal, Volume 39 (2013) 3-20.
    • “Gifted Beggars in the Metaxu: a Study of the Platonic and Augustinian Resonances of Porosity in God and the Between,” In: Louvain Studies, Gregory Grimes (ed.), Vol. 36 (2-3) Summer-Fall, (2012) 256-281
    • “De Profundis Clamavi ad Te Domine: the existential significance of depth for Berkeley, Merleau-Ponty and Desmond”, In: Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society (2005) 237-253.

  • Conference Papers

    • “Augustine Sermonising: A Narrative of Self Through Scripture” – by invitation from ACU and St. Andrews University workshop for Templeton Foundation Grant Planning Workshop (Tantur Institute, Jerusalem, Israel, June 2023)
    • “Discerning in Everyday Life: Reflections on the Plenary Council” – by invitation from Brisbane Archdiocese (Brisbane Archdiocesan Summit, Brisbane, May 2023)
    • “Not Spectacle but Self-Reflection: The Augustinian Catholic Imagination”, Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts (St. Andrews University, UK, October 2020)
    • “Embracing Complexities: Retrieving Order In Interiore Homine”, Ordo Amoris in Augustine, XVIII International Conference on Patristics Studies (Oxford University, 2019)
    • “Response”, Many Old Gods: Conference with William T. Cavanaugh. Institute of Ethics and Society (Sydney, 2019)
    • “A Liberal Arts Approach to Religious Education in the Classroom”, co-presented with Janina Starkey, National Religious Education Conference: Moving from Theory to Practice. (Sydney, 2019)
    • “Response”, William Desmond and Contemporary Philosophy. American Academy of Religion (Denver, 2019)
    • “Saints Augustine and Jerome: Finding the Limitations when Friends Disagree”, Emotions, Virtues and Public Life with guest speakers John and Alison Milbank. Institute of Ethics and Society (Sydney, 2018)
    • “On Speaking the Amen: Augustinian Soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Metaxu.” William Desmond’s Philosophy Between Metaphysics, Religion, Ethics, and Aesthetics. (Leuven, 2018)
    • “Eyes of Flesh and Mind: Nicholas Cusanus’s Path from Vision to Interreligious Dialogue” Religious Materiality and Emotion, for The ARC for History of Research and Emotions. University of Adelaide (Adelaide, 2016)
    • (co-presented with Prof. Sandra Lynch) “Approaching the teaching of ethics in tertiary institutions: theory and committed action,” Civil Society and Human Formation: Philosophy’s Role in a Renewed Understanding of the Meaning of Education, COMIUCAP conference (ACU Melbourne), July 21st, 2015
    • “Trees in the Garden: Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, and the Order of Justice,” Biennial Conference in Philosophy, Religion and Culture, Catholic Institute of Studies, Sydney, 3rd October 2014.
    • "The Justice of Jeremiah’s Tears,” Philosophical Investigation of the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, and Midrash, Shalem Center – Institute for Advanced Studies (Jerusalem, Israel), July 24th, 2013.
    • “On Keeping Truth in Style: On the Tradition and Scandals of Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Architecture,” Tradition: Friend or Foe of Freedom?, University of Notre Dame Australia (Sydney), July 4th, 2013.
    • “Liturgical Art and Architecture After the Council: What Works?”, The Great Grace: Receiving Vatican II Today, Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia, May 22nd, 2013.
    • “Reciprocal Nurturing at the Heart of Society: Motherhood vs. Surrogacy,” World Congress of Families (Sydney), May 18th, 2013.
    • “Toward an Anagogical Imagination: How Gothic Architecture Might Make Known the Things Unseen,” The Expressible and the Inexpressible, Biennial Conference in Philosophy, Religion and Culture, Catholic Institute of Sydney, October 7th, 2012.
    • “The Beginning that is already an end: Finding the Significance of Labyrinthine Travel,” Philosophies of Travel: Exploring the Value of Travel in Art, Literature, and Society, The Sydney Society of Literature and Aesthetics and the Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney, October 31st 2011.
    • “‘No Block Creation’: Good and Evil in William Desmond’s Augustinian Philosophy of Elemental Order,” 7th International LEST (Leuven Encounters in Systematic Theology) Conference: “To Discern Creation in a Scattering World”, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, October 30th, 2009.
    • “After God’s Own Heart”: The Interior Relationship Between God and David in the Books of Samuel,” The Bible and Philosophy: Rethinking the Fundamentals conference, The Shalem Center, Jerusalem, October 27th, 2009.
    • “Porous Being and Being Porous”, Study Day on God and the Between, Leuven, April 21st 2009.
    • “Elemental Microcosms: Sacred Space and the City”, UCSIA expert seminar: The Sacred in the Metropolis, University of Antwerp, March 24th, 2009.
    • “Enchanted Spaces of Imagination: Understanding Benedict XVI's Vision of Ecclesiastical Architecture”, The Grandeur of Reason: Religion, Tradition and Universalism, The Centre of Theology and Philosophy, Rome, Italy, September 1st, 2008.
    • “‘Man is in place from head to foot’: Creatio, Conversio, Formatio as the structure for an Augustinian Conception of Sacred Space”. Structure, Space, and Meaning: The Walls and Portals of Premodern Worlds, 31st International Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference, University of Villanova (USA), October 14th 2006.
    • “William James’s Idea of Crass Supernaturalism and its Consequences for the Religious Experience”, Belief and Metaphysics, Centre of Theology and Philosophy, Granada, Spain, September 16th 2006.
    • “Fear and Trembling’s Objective Correlative and Re-Creational Faith”, Religious Emotions: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, University of Antwerp (Belgium), 21st September, 2005.
    • “Berkeley and Desmond on Space”, Berkeley and Irish Philosophy, Kilkenny Castle (Ireland), 4th November, 2004.
    • “Sacrament and Space”, Phenomenology and Transcendence, The Centre of Theology and Philosophy, University of Nottingham (UK), 2nd September, 2005.
    • “An Archaeological Ethics: Augustine, Desmond, and Digging Back to the Agapeic Origin,” Irish Philosophical Association, Cork, December 29, 2002.
    • “From Cellar to Bedroom: Cartesian Method vs. Augustinian Sacramental Vision,” Illumination: Reason, Revelation and Science, Oxford University (UK), 24th July, 2002.
    • “A Room of Our Own: Community and the Space of Technology”, Philosophy and Technology, University of Essex (UK), 24th February, 2000.

    Discussion Papers Presented at Conferences:

    • “Shifting Centres: Sacred Space in St. Augustine’s Confessions,” IPSA (International Philosophy Students’ Association Doctorandi Lecture Series, K.U. Leuven, 20th February, 2002.
    • “Body, Cyberspace and Community,” Technology and the Arts, Arts Faculty, K.U. Leuven, February 15 2001.

    Conference Respondent:

    • Praxis and Freedom, K.U. Leuven, 8th–9th December, 2005.
    • Intersubjectivity and Embodiment: Perspectives from Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, K.U. Leuven, 14th-15th September, 2003.
    • Western Philosophy and its Relationship to Other Philosophical Traditions, K.U. Leuven, 24th-25th October, 2002.

    Colloquium Participant:

    • Third International Kierkegaard-colloquium Spring 2006, on The Concept of Dread, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 6th-7th May, 2006.

  • In the Media

  • Awards

    • Distinguished Service Medal, University of Notre Dame Australia, May 2023
    • Vice Chancellor’s Award for Initiatives that Enhance Student Learning with members of the Core Curriculum Teaching Team, 2013