Bernard McGinn (born August 19, 1937) is an American Roman Catholic theologian, religious historian, and scholar of spirituality. A specialist in Medieval mysticism, McGinn is widely regarded as the preeminent scholar of mysticism in the Western Christian tradition. He is best known for his comprehensive series on mysticism, The Presence of God. According to McGinn, "Even for people who may not have any religious commitment of their own, a study of the great mystics can reveal something about human creativity and genius." Life McGinn graduated cum laude from Saint Joseph's Seminary (Dunwoodie) in Yonkers, New York. In 1963, he earned a STL from the Gregorian University, and in 1970 a Ph.D. in history from Brandeis University, writing his dissertation on a twelfth-century Cistercian mystical author named Isaac of Stella. His areas of concentration are theology and Medieval intellectual history. According to McGinn, "Even for people who may not have any religious commitment of their own, a study of the great mystics can reveal something about human creativity and genius.", "McGinn is widely considered the preeminent scholar of mysticism in the Western Christian tradition and a leading authority on the theology of the 14th-century mystic Meister Eckhart". McGinn taught for a year at the Catholic University of America before joining the faculty of the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he taught Historical Theology and the History of Christianity from 1969 to 2003. He was appointed to the Donnelley chair in 1992 and is the Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor Emeritus of Historical Theology and of the History of Christianity at the school and serves on the Committees on Medieval Studies and on General Studies at the University of Chicago. From 1988 to 2015, McGinn was editor-in-chief of the Paulist Press Classics of Western Spirituality Series; he also served as a member of the editorial boards of Cistercian Publications, and other publications. In 2003, he co-wrote Early Christian Mystics: The Divine Vision of the Spiritual Masters with his wife, psychotherapist Pat McGinn. McGinn is a past-president of the American Society of Church History and the American Catholic Historical Association. Although he assumed emeritus status in 2003, he has continued publishing scholarly work since that time. In 2005 he participated in a symposium on "Spiritual Information", sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 2015, he gave the Costan Lecture at Georgetown University. In June of that same year, he