About

Clemens Sedmak is a professor of social ethics in the Keough School of Global Affairs and director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also an advisor in Catholic Social Tradition in the Center for Social Concerns and a Kellogg Institute for International Studies faculty fellow. He has been a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow since 2017.

Sedmak focuses his research on social ethics, the Catholic social tradition, and issues of poverty and justice.

The author most recently of The Capacity to be Displaced: Resilience, Mission, and Inner Strength (Brill, 2017) and Church of the Poor: Pope Francis and the Transformation of Orthodoxy (Orbis, 2016), Sedmak has published hundreds of books and articles in several languages.

Before coming to Notre Dame, he was the F. D. Maurice Professor for Moral and Social Theology at King’s College London. He previously served as director of the Center for Ethics and Poverty Research and chair for epistemology and philosophy of religion at the University of Salzburg, where he was also president of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Ethics.

Sedmak has held visiting professor posts at Jomo Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, Germany’s University of Jena, Vienna Business University, and Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. A native of Austria, he holds a PhD in theology from the Catholic University of Linz, and PhDs in philosophy and in social theory from the University of Innsbruck.

 

ISP Advisee(s):
Raleigh Kuipers
William Ek

Thematic Interests

Catholic social tradition; social ethics; poverty; theories of justice, epistemology and ethics; philosophy of religion and religious studies

Research Sub-Discipline
Other Accomplishments & Recognitions
  • Honorable Mention, Catholic Press Association Book Awards (category “Pope Francis”) for Church of the Poor: Pope Francis and the Transformation of Orthodoxy (2017)
  • Named Full Member, European Academy for Sciences and Arts (2015)
  • Senator Wittschier Award for Outstanding Research, University of Salzburg (2014)