Theresia von Weiss earned a BA in philosophy and studio art from St. Catherine University in 2023, where they were an Antonian Honors Scholar and graduated summa cum laude. Their academic and creative work centers on community-engaged art, environmental stewardship, philosophy, and cross-cultural collaboration. During their undergraduate studies, they contributed to projects exploring public art, social practice, and institutional history, including a student-led initiative focused on acquiring and exhibiting artwork by BIPOC artists for the university community.
Theresia has worked across nonprofit, educational, and arts organizations in roles emphasizing communication, collaboration, and public engagement. As a communications intern at Mary’s Pence, they supported nonprofit outreach efforts through writing and grant development. They later served as a teaching assistant for the course “Building a Creative Life” at St. Catherine University, where they collaborated on curriculum development and mentored students in realizing creative projects. Theresia’s current interests include philosophy of art, spiritual philosophy, environmental justice, and community-based artistic practice.
Theresia’s Fulbright-Nehru project is connecting the philosophy of art with the philosophy of religion. They are researching and writing about whether spiritual leaders are themselves considered artists. While current philosophical writing on the aesthetics of spiritual experience directly relates to visual arts and the concept of beauty, Theresia’s philosophy sets out the argument that spiritual leaders are artists. Since fundamental questions such as what an artist is and what art is are the most commonly explored concepts in the field of philosophy of art and aesthetics, looking at spiritual experiences as art steers that conversation toward a new and vital direction.