About Gwen Adams, PhD
Gwen Adams is a writer, playwright, director, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at the Augustine Institute, (Florissant, MO). With experience in parish, diocesan, school and university settings, she has produced plays, taught history, literature, and writing, and offered courses, including:
Reform, Renewal, and the Lay Faithful (a history of reform and renewal in the Catholic Church, designed and co-taught with Dr. Bronwen McShea)
Catholic Education: Ends, Principles, and Methods
The New Evangelization and Culture
For more than twenty years, Adams has been working on ways to cultivate the soil of Christian culture. Are you working on a project related to Christian culture? Educational renewal? History? Theater? Are you an educator, leader, or creative looking for visionary and practical ideas?
Talks
Adams has presented with Word on Fire, the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education National Conference, the McGrath Institute for Church Life (University of Notre Dame), the Center for Ethics and Culture Conference (University of Notre Dame), the Symposium on Transforming the Culture (Benedictine College), the Archdiocese of Seattle, Diocese of Burlington, the Diocese of Superior, and other locations around the country.
Sample Presentations and Workshops
“The Corpus Christi Plays: The Drama of Salvation in the Streets of the City” (FORMED Lenten Bible Conference 2022)
“Come Away and Rest Awhile” (Lay Leaders Conference 2022, Augustine Institute)
“The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: Salvation History and the History of Western Education”
“Learning through Experience: Integrating the Faith in School & Parish Life”
“The Love of God and True Love of Self”
“The Theology of Work”
“The Theology of Rest”
“Magnanimity, Mistakes, and Improvisation”
Let them be born in
wonder
Educational Renewal
Inspired by John Henry Newman, Christopher Dawson, and John Senior, Adams has worked for educational renewal with friends at Cana Academy, Trinity Schools, Immaculata Classical Academy, Our Lady of Hope Chesterton Academy, and others.
In 2019, the Archdiocese of Seattle brought Adams to beautiful Washington State to present to over eighty school leaders at the annual Christ in the Classroom Leadership Retreat. Adams teaches in the Catholic Education MA Program at the Augustine Institute.
Adams is a teacher and continues to help other teachers and school leaders.
Testimonials
Writer
Writer
Gwen Adams has developed content and resources for the Amen App, Hallow App, Vianney Vocations, and the Diocese of Metuchen, NJ. She is a contributor to Why Believe? and her work has appeared in Church Life Journal and Faith and Culture.
Books
Handbook to the Heart of Culture, volumes I-III (Cluny Media, 2025)
By an Unexpected Way (Augustine Institute Press, 2019), available in print, ebook, and as an audiobook read by the author.
Book interview with Taylor Kemp on Formed Now
Articles
“Eucharistic Affiliation and the Chimera of Control,” Church Life Journal (February 2022).
“Standing With Beowulf,” Cana Academy (16 March 2020).
“The Via Francigena and the Idea of a Pilgrimage,” Faith and Culture 1, no. 4 (Fall 2018).
“The Importance of Geographic Stability for the Church,” Church Life Journal (April 2018).
“Beauty is for Everyone,” Faith and Culture 1, no. 2 (Spring 2018).
Director & Playwright
Gwen Adams has been working with youth and young adults to connect faith and theater for twenty years. Directing credits include Kate and Nicholas Nickleby (2024), The Winter’s Tale (with Agape Theater Company, 2023) Puss in Boots (2019), Hickscorner (2012, 2001); Life Is a Dream (2012, 2001); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2005); Commedia dell’Arte theater “The Flower of Beauty” and “The Secret Room” (2005); The Other Wiseman (2004, 2003); and Uncle Vanya (2003). She was awarded a grant by The Arts Federation in 2005 to produce street theater events.
Plays by Gwen Adams
Director & Playwright
Education
Education
PhD, Theology
Maryvale Institute, Birmingham/Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK (2016)
Dissertation Project: A study of geographic stability in three Midwestern parish communities, with reference to the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and the Benedictine tradition, analyzing results from a survey of one thousand respondents and thirty hours of semi-structured interviews.
Supervisors: Dr. Catherine Kavanagh, Rev. Peter Stravinskas, and Dr. Catherine Knowles
Examiners: Rev. Michael S. Sherwin, Dr. Andrew Morris
MA, Catholic Studies
University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN (2007)
Thesis: The Genre of Fairy-tales: Contemplative Form and Formative Power, an analysis of the structure and sacramental character of western European fairy-tale literature with reference to Josef Pieper and J. R. R. Tolkien.
Advisor: Fr. Michael Keating
Readers: Dr. Don Briel, Dr. Michael Jordan
BA, History
Thesis: The Educational Science of the Enlightenment vs. the Catholic Educational Philosophy of Cardinal Newman and Don Bosco.
Advisor: Dr. Jonathan Reyes
bärd´strēt
About Bardstreet
With a name connoting storytellers from Homer to Shakespeare and founded by Gwen Adams in 2018, Bardstreet is a creative workshop offering plays and other resources for building Christian culture.
About the Logo
In The Spirit of the Liturgy, Joseph Ratzinger uses the phrase “church and inn” to describe the harmonious relationship between divine worship and attendant festivities and traditions. In short, “church and inn” is a great phrase to describe Christian culture, in which the Christian faith incarnates itself, is nourished by, and transmits its beliefs in an embodied way of life with distinctive customs, institutions, and modes of expression. These tangible embodiments of faith point us back to Christ and things of eternal significance.
Bardstreet’s logo is a mashup of “church and inn,” combining the silhouettes of one great parish and one great town. Gwen Adams tells about the parish in chapter 10 of By an Unexpected Way (Augustine Institute Press, 2019). Someday she may tell the story of the town so intertwined with history, education, and theater.
