Betsy Hansbrough

Betsy describes herself as “a non-academic and non- clergy person.” She has taught mimetic theory in various ways for twenty years — the last ten at a Catholic girls’ school in Missouri. Twice she has taken students to COV&R to make presentations on a course she created called “Theology and Film”. Once she brought two amazing young women to Theology and Peace. Since retiring, Betsy has been working with several others to create curricula around MT for middle and high school students.

Betsy’s original education was in music and she trained in voice performance and English literature at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.. “After I figured out that singing for a living would neither feed nor clothe me,” Betsy explains, she went into social work, worked for a juvenile court for ten years and earned a master’s degree in corrections during that time.

She followed her criminal justice work with going to nursing school at Luke’s School of Nursing and working in a medical ICU for almost 25 years. During those twenty five years Betsy also completed a master’s degree in ministry from Loyola University/New Orleans, did RCIA education in her diocese, worked in her parish as the liturgy planner and did a bit of training toward chaplaincy.

“In the midst of it all began the secondary conversion that happens to those who discover Mimetic theory and read EVERYTHING about it that they can find,” Betsy says. She left nursing to teach theology in a local private school and created a course in Mimetic theory and film. She began attending Girardian conferences over a decade ago and presented several times at COV&R and Theology & Peace.

“I think MT, or whatever others call it, is a path to peace and to Christian conversion in this time of chaos. Now that I am retired, it seems that it is my ‘next career.’”

Betsy and her husband Dennis are parents of three children and the proud grandparents of a new granddaughter. She says she has lots of pictures to share with perfect strangers. Just ask!