Dr. Alexandre A. Martins

Dr. Alexandre A. MartinsMarquette University

Marquette Hall, 323

MilwaukeeWI53201United States of America(414) 288-3165alexandre.martins@marquette.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Associate Professor

Theology Department

Director of Undergraduate Studies

William J. Kelly, S.J., Chair in Theology (2023-2026)

(Ph.D. Marquette University, 2017, Post-Doctorate University of Coimbra, 2019), hold a joint position at Theology Department and College of Nursing. He specializes in health care ethics and social ethics, especially in the areas of public health, global health, Catholic social teaching, and liberation theology. He is also a scholar in philosophy of religion, specialized in the work of French philosopher Simone Weil. His scholarship has been broad. He has engaged in ethics, theology, and health care through a dialogue with anthropology, philosophy, epidemiology, and medical science, especially engaging with marginalized voices and addressing issues from the perspective of the poor.

Alexandre is a theologian and bioethicist from Brazil who, throughout his academic and activist life, has acted as an advocate for universal health care coverage through grassroots and social movements as well as through his scholarship and publications. He is deeply engaged in bioethics and public health through social movements organized from marginalized communities, including a time when he served the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference as an adviser on issues of bioethics and pastoral care. Through humanitarian organizations and academic projects, he has also served in areas marked by poverty and lack of adequate health care assistance, such as Brazil, Bolivia, Haiti, and Uganda. These activities are projects in global health that he has developed with partners and committed to Catholic values, diversity and the empowerment of the poor.

His work and publications have international recognition. He has spoken in conferences and led seminars in different countries, especially as a visiting scholar at Saint Camillus University in São Paulo, Brazil and at Camillianum - Istituto Internazionale di Teologia Pastorale Sanitaria of Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, Italy. He also serves on Planning Committee of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church as Regional Coordinator for Latin American and Caribbean Region, on the Brazilian Society of Moral Theology as vice-president, on the Academic Committee of the International Association of Catholic Bioethics, leads the project Polis & Hope, and serves in the Ethics Committee of Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee.

Courses Taught

• Bioethics for Health Care
• Medical Ethics
• Theology and Global Health
• Catholic Social Thought
• Liberation Theology
• Simone Weil

Research Interests

Health Care Ethics, Social Ethics, Global Health, Liberation Theology, Simone Weil

Currently, his research interests focus on Catholic social ethics and health care ethics with special concentration in public and global health. Three of the projects he is leading are: (1) Community Participation in Public Health Decision-Making and Human Rights: Neoliberal Policies and Universal Health Care Coverage in Brazil; (2) bioethics from a new lens, seeking for new epistemological perspectives from the global south for bioethics; (3) the project Abya Yala: Emerging Voices of Latin America and Caribbean that fosters the development of the new theological ethicists from Latin America.

Publications

He has published several articles and books, selected publications are:

Christology and Global Ethics: Encountering the Poor in a Pluralist Reality (Mahwah, NJ.:  Paulist Press, 2023)

A Prophet to the Peoples: Paul Farmer’s Witness and Theological Ethics, co-edited with Jennie Weiss Block, OP and M. Therese Lysaught, (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications by Wipf & Stock, 2023).

Covid-19, Política e Fé: Bioética em diálogo na realidade enlouquecida (São Paulo, SP: O Gênio Criador, 2020)

The Cry of the Poor: Liberation Ethics and Justice in Health Care (Lanham, MD.: Lexington Books, 2020)

A Pobreza e a Graça: Experiência de Deus em Meio ao Sofrimento em Simone Weil (São Paulo: Paulus, 2013).

“A escuta como método e os pobres/oprimidos como sujeitos: por uma bioética global plural” Revista Pistis and Praxis, 15, no.2 (2023): 270–291. https://doi.org/10.7213/2175-1838.15.002.DS09  

"Christian Ethics and Liberation from Below: A Way of Doing Theological Ethics in Brazil" Religions 14, no. 6 (2023): 794 [1–9]. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14060794

“Theological Bioethics from the Margins: Epistemology and Latin American Liberation Theology in Bioethics” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 22, no. 2 (Summer 2022): 239-255. https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq202222222

“The End of Life in a Global Health Perspective” Concilium 57, no, 5 (2021): 56-65. [Article is also available in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Germany]

With Sydney Allen, “Litigation to Access Health Services: Ally or Enemy of Global Public Health?”  Annals of Global Health, 86, 1 (2020),14, 1-15. http://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2760

“Ética Social Católica e Saúde Pública: Em Busca de uma Bioética Libertadora” in Perspectiva Teológica 51, no. 3 (Sept./Dec. 2019): 461-480. https://doi.org/10.20911/21768757v51n3p461/2019

“From Vatican II to Amoris Laetitia: The Catholic Social and Sexual Ethics Division and a Way of Ecclesial Interconnection” in Fronteiras 2, no. 2 (July/Dec. 2019): 69-89. https://doi.org/10.25247/2595-3788.2019.v2n2.p69-89

“Simone Weil’s Radical Ontology of Rootedness: Natural and Supernatural Justice” in Praxis: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Faith and Justice (Online Frist, Dec. 10, 2019). https://doi.org/10.5840/praxis20191296

“The Leftist Political Parties in Light of Simone Weil’s Criticism: The Workers’ Party Care” in Síntese: Revista de Filosofia 46, no. 145 (May/August 2019): 283-300. https://doi.org/10.20911/21769389v46n145p47/2019

“Laudato Si’: Integral Ecology and Preferential Option for the Poor” in Journal of Religious Ethics 43, no. 3 (2018): 410-424. https://doi.org/10.1111/jore.12224

Additional Information

Office Hours - Fall 2023

• Tu 1:00-2:30
• Th 1:00-2:30
• And by appointment