Life

Orsi was born and raised in the Bronx borough of New York City. He majored in religion and sociology at Trinity College (CT) and graduated salutatorian

Salutatorian

Salutatorian is an academic title given, in the United States and Canada, to the second highest graduate of the entire graduating class of a specific discipline. Only the valedictorian is ranked higher. This honor is traditionally based on grade point average and number of credits taken, but...

 in 1975, receiving both a Danforth and Watson Scholarship. He attended graduate school in religion at Yale University where his prize-winning dissertation formed the basis of his first book, The Madonna of 115th Street. He taught at Fordham University

Fordham University

Fordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in the United States, with three campuses in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St...

 at Lincoln Center from 1981 to 1988, at Indiana University

Indiana University

Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...

 from 1988 to 2001, and Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

/Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. The School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public...

 from 2001 to 2007. He currently teaches at Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

.

He is currently at work on The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies and on a social and cultural history of 20th-century Catholic childhoods in the United States, to be published by Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...

.

Awards

• 2000 Guggenheim Fellowship
  Guggenheim Fellowship
  Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
  
  
• 1999 National Endowment for the Humanities
  National Endowment for the Humanities
  The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
  
   Fellowship
• Fulbright Fellowship
• John Gilmary Shea Prize from the American Catholic Historical Association, for The Madonna of 115th Street
• Jesuit National Book Award, for The Madonna of 115th Street
• Merle Curti Award
  Merle Curti Award
  The Merle Curti Award is awarded annually by the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American social and/or American intellectual history. A committee of 5 members of the Organization of American Historians chooses the winners from published monographs submitted by the author...
  
   in American Social History from the Organization of American Historians
  Organization of American Historians
  The Organization of American Historians , formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, is the largest professional society dedicated to the teaching and study of American history. OAH's members in the U.S...
  
  , for Thank You, Saint Jude
• Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion from the American Academy of Religion, for Between Heaven and Earth

Works

• "When 2+2=5", The American Scholar, Spring 2007

(1st edition 1985),

External links