Canonization may be fundamentally about holiness, but it is never only about holiness.  In the U.S., it was often about the ways in which Catholics defined, defended, and celebrated their identities as Americans. On Oct. 11, Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame, will present “Superpower Saints: Canonization in America, 1939-1963.” Cummings will discuss how the story of the people who championed, challenged, and invoked canonization candidate Elizabeth Ann Seton between 1939 and 1963 is a case study of how personality and power intersected to shape the afterlife of an American saint. Cummings is the author of New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era and co-editor of Catholics and the American Century: Recasting Narratives of U.S. History. Her current book project is Citizen Saints: Catholics and Canonization in America. Her talk will take place in Gasson Hall, room 100, starting at 4 p.m. Sponsors: Catholic Studies and the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life.