Education
Zaleski previously taught at Harvard University, where she received her Doctor of Philosophy in the Study of Religion, and is the Professor of World Religions at Smith College.
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Carol Zaleski
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Zaleski is celebrated for her writings on the afterlife, which include the Encyclopædia Britannica articles on heaven, hell, and purgatory. Journalist Lisa Miller has called her "the mother of modern heaven studies." Her published lectures include the Ingersoll Lecture on Human Immortality at Harvard (“In Defense of Immortality”) and the Albert Cardinal Meyer Lectures at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary (published as The Life of the World to Come). She writes a regular column on faith for The Christian Century, where she is also editor-at-large, and her essays and reviews appear frequently in leading newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post, First Things, America, The New York Times Book Review.
Her 2003 First Things essay on “The Dark Night of Mother Teresa” received attention as an early exploration of Mother Teresa’s recently publicized spiritual trials.
