Cesar "CJ" Baldelomar | Saint Mary's College

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César "CJ" Baldelomar , Ph.D., LL.M., J.D.

Assistant Professor,

Departments:

School of Liberal Arts | Theology & Religious Studies
School of Liberal Arts | Women's and Gender Studies

Email: cjb30@stmarys-ca.edu

Office Location: Dante Hall 327

Professional Overview

A scholar with wide-ranging interests, Dr. César "CJ" Baldelomar is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies and Affiliate in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Saint Mary's College of California. He teaches courses on Christian Foundations, Colonialism, Race, and Religion, and Latinx Religious Experience and Theology. CJ has previously taught at Mount Holyoke College and at Boston College. He earned his doctorate in Theology and Education, with distinction, from Boston College, where he was a Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellow. CJ also earned two law degrees, including a Master of Laws in Intercultural Human Rights, and worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center on issues of immigration and criminal reform. Before that, he graduated from Harvard University with two master’s degrees: a Master of Theological Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Politics and a Master of Education in Learning and Teaching.

CJ's research and writing blends critical theory (especially postmodernism, poststructuralism, and critical legal studies), decolonial thought, and neglected scenes of Christian theology to explore various ways to imagine and talk about the self or selves, concepts of justice, and deeper relationality to all life. His writing also considers pedagogy in light of skepticism, nihilism, and violence. He has presented at numerous conferences, retreats, and workshops across the United States and around the world on topics ranging from environmental migration to best practices of learning and teaching (especially in theological education) to cosmologies and identities.

CJ is currently working on two book projects, including one for the New Horizons in Hispanic Catholic Theology series from Convivium Press. He is also a regular contributor to , where he was a Commonweal Fellow, and other popular outlets.

Areas of Expertise

Religion and the environment, decolonial thought, immigration and borders, reimagining international law, religion in the public sphere, religious literacy, theological anthropology, theological and religious education and pedagogies, queer theologies, and Catholic social teaching

Selected Publications

Books

Fragmented Theological Imaginings. Miami: Convivium Press (under contract, forthcoming 2025).

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

“The Scandal of the Prison-Immigration Industrial Complex,” in Hispanic Ministry as a Practice of Justice, edited by Luis Fraga and Hosffman Ospino. Miami: Convivium Press (forthcoming 2025).
“Heeding Latinx Dissonant and Dislocated Voices,” in Feet on the Ground: Hispanic Catholic Theology in the Ministerial Trenches, edited by Hosffman Ospino. Miami: Convivium Press (forthcoming 2025).
“Ecotheology, Colonialism, and Decolonization,” in The Routledge Handbook of Ecotheology, edited by Matthew Eaton and Timothy Harvie. London: Routledge (forthcoming 2025).
With Peter Blaze Corcoran, “Dreaming Together: Reflections on the Principle of Intergenerational Equity,” in Earth Charter Conference Proceedings, edited by Mirian Vilela (forthcoming 2025).
“Religious Literacy and Ecopedagogy: An Unusual Rhizomatic Alliance Within Atmospheres of Violence,” in Religious Literacy in the Public Sphere, edited by Sabrina MisirHiralall and Kate Soules. London: Routledge, 2025.
“Potential Responses to the Colonial Matrix of Power in Light of the Animal (Rights) Turn: To Imagine What Never Was,” Liberatio Journal 1, no. 1 (2024): 71-83.
“Notes on Ecological Imagination: Ecopedagogy Amid (Eco)Precarity,” Zeal: A Journal for the Liberal Arts 3, no. 1 (2024): 41-49.
“The Possibilities of Rhizomatic Imagination and Ecopedagogy Amid the End of an Era,” Earth Charter Magazine 1, no.1 (June 2023): 5-12.
With Ospino, Hosffman, “Are Our Ministerial Organizations Looking at the Whole Picture?,” in Ministry with Young Hispanic Catholics: Towards a Recipe for Growth and Success, edited by Hosffman Ospino, 73-75. Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College, 2023.
“Haunted by (Ontological) Ancestors and Bodies in Precarity: Religious Education Confronts Ontological Terror, Biopower, and Necropolitics, Religious Education 117, no. 5 (2022): 439-451.
“The (Non)Existence of Uprooted Bodies: The Limits of Authorized Imaginations and Languages in Assisting Bodies on the Move Due to Environmental Causes,” in Shifting Climates, Shifting People, edited by Miguel A. De La Torre, 47-60. Cleveland, Ohio: The Pilgrim Press, 2022.
“A Reimagined Ethical Imagination: Considering Epistemological Nihilism and Afro-Pessimism as a Corrective to an Ethics of Hope,” Perspectivas 18 (2021): 23-42.
“Toward a Reimagined Theological Anthropology: Freeing the Excluded and Re-envisioning Scenes of Instruction,” Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology 22, no. 1 (2020): 1-24.

Education

Ph.D., Boston College
LL.M., St. Thomas School of Law
J.D., St. Thomas School of Law
ED.M., Harvard University
M.T.S., Harvard University
B.A., St. Thomas University

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