http://www.aarweb.org/about_AAR/committees/Status_of_Women_in_the_Profession/mentoringlunch.asp
AAR Women's Mentoring Lunch
2012 AAR Annual Meeting, Chicago
Sunday, November 18
11:45 am – 12:45 pm
Registration now open!
Judith Plaskow, Manhattan College, Presiding
Sponsored by the Status of Women in the Profession Committee, Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee, and the Women's Caucus
The Status of Women in the Profession Committee, Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee, and the Women's Caucus invite women who are graduate students and new scholars to a luncheon with over thirty womanist, feminist, and LGBTIQ midcareer and senior scholars. Women will have the opportunity to mentor and be mentored in a context where every question is valued. The lunch costs $10 per person; sorry, no refunds. Registration is limited to 100. Click here to register.
2012 AAR Women’s Mentoring Lunch: Mentors and Self-descriptions
Rebecca T. Alpert is Associate Professor of Religion and Women's Studies at Temple University. She attended Barnard College before receiving her Ph.D. in religion at Temple University and her rabbinical training at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. She is the co-author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach, author of Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition and Whose Torah? A Concise Guide to Progressive Judaism as well as several edited volumes and numerous articles. Her specialization is religion in America, and with a focus on sexuality and race. She has recently taught courses on religion in American public life; Jews, America and sports, and sexuality in world religions. Her most recent work, Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball, was published by Oxford Press in June 2011.
Ellen T. Armour currently holds the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Chair in Theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School where she also directs the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Prior to joining the Vanderbilt faculty, she taught at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN for 16 years. She is the author of Deconstruction, Feminist Theology, and the Problem Of Difference: Subverting the Race/Gender Divide (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) and co-editor of Bodily Citations: Judith Butler and Religion (Columbia University Press, 2006). Her research interests are informed by her own identity as a white lesbian feminist.
Melanie L. Harris is Associate Professor of Religion and Ethics at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. Her teaching and research interests include Christian Social Ethics, Womanist Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Media and Religion and African and African American Religious Thought. Dr. Harris is the author of Gifts of Virture: Alice Walker and Womanist Ethics and co-editor with Kate M. Ott of Faith, Feminism and Scholarship: The Next Generation. She has also written many academic articles including “EcoWomanism: Earth Justice, Earth Ethics," "Compassion and Justice Womanist Approaches to Buddhism" and "Womanist Humanism: A New Hermeneutic.” Awarded more than $100,000 in grants, Dr. Harris mentors graduate students and faculty in the area of tenure and promotion, and helps scholars think though life balance and build academic portfolios. Dr. Harris is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York City where she received her Master of Philosophy and Doctoral degrees. She completed her Masters of Divinity at Iliff School of Theology and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Spelman College.
Susan Henking is Professor of Religious Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (liberal arts colleges). She served as chair of her department for a decade and as a senior administrator for several years. She was a co-founder of the lesbian feminist issues in religion section of the AAR, served on the AAR board for 9 years, and was the founding editor of the AAR Teaching Religious Studies. She co-edited Que(e)rying Religious Studies with Gary David Comstock and Mourning Religion with William Parsons and Diane Jonte Pace. Her areas of research include religion and the history of the social sciences, gender and sexuality in the American context.
Mary E. Hunt is a feminist Catholic theologian and co-director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, Maryland. Dr. Hunt lectures and writes on theology and ethics. She is the editor of A Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z (Palgrave, 2004) and co-editor with Diann L. Neu of New Feminist Christianity: Many Voices, Many Views (SkyLight Paths, 2010).
Namsoon Kang is Professor of World Christianity and Religions at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. Before she joined Brite Divinity School, she taught at Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK, and Methodist Theological University, Korea. She studied in Korea, Germany, and the USA with her Ph.D. from Drew University. She was one of the plenaryspeakers at the 9th WCC Assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2006, and is currently the president of WOCATI (World Conference of Associations of Theological Institutions). Her most recent publications include Cosmopolitan Theology (forthcoming), Handbook of Theological Education in World Christianity (co-edited) and “Transethnic Feminist Theology of Asia.”
Zayn Kassam is Professor of Religious Studies at Pomona College, Claremont, California and is also on the faculty at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California. A graduate of McGill University (Ph.D 1995), she teaches courses in Islamic philosophy, mysticism, gender and literature as well as a course on religion and the environment. She has lectured widely on gender issues in the United States, Canada, and Britain. She has been honored with two Wig Awards for Distinguished Teaching at Pomona College, as well as an American Academy of Religion Excellence in Teaching Award. She is the author of a book on Islam that is part of a series on the world's major religions, and editor of a book of essays dealing with gender in Muslim societies and activism. She is currently working on two books, one on gender issues in the Islamic world and another on medieval Qur’anic hermeneutics. Zayn has chaired the department of Religious Studies at Pomona College, and coordinated the programs in Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian Studies. She serves on several national editorial boards, including the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and has co-chaired the Study of Islam Section at the American Academy of Religion, as well as served on the Racial and Ethnic Minorities Committee at the AAR.
Grace Ji-Sun Kim is an Associate Professor of Doctrinal Theology and the Director of the Master of Arts in Theological Studies program at Moravian Theological Seminary. She is the author of two books, The Grace of Sophia: A Korean North American Women’s Christology (Pilgrim Press) and The Holy Spirit, Chi and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (Palgrave Macmillan). She has also written over 50 journal articles, book reviews and book chapters. Kim is a much sought after lecturer and has given papers/lectures throughout the United States and in Korea, Myanmar, Spain, Brazil and Canada. Presently, she is working on a biblical commentary on First and Second Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah for the series Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Westminster John Knox Press, forthcoming). Kim is active in the academy, serves on AAR’s ‘Research Grants Jury Committee” and is part of the “Korean Systematic Theology Group” (AAR). She also serves as a co-chair for AAR’s “Women of Color Scholarship, Teaching and Activism Consultation” and is a steering committee member of “Comparative Theology Group.” Kim sits on the editorial board of the Journal for Religion and Popular Culture and is a referee for 3 journals: Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture and The Global Studies Journal. Kim is also ordained as a minister of word and sacrament within the PC (USA) denomination. Additionally, she regularly blogs about academic issues including the challenges of balancing motherhood with the academic profession, which you can read more about here.
Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan is Professor of Religion at Shaw University Divinity School (Raleigh, NC). She holds a doctorate from Baylor University. The 2009 and 2011 Shaw University Excellence in Research Awardee, 2011 YWCA Academy of Women Honoree in Education, 2011 Black Religious Scholar Honoree, and 2012 Womanist Legend Honoree, Kirk-Duggan is author and editor of over twenty books and numerous articles and is an Ordained Elder in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Her research and teaching is interdisciplinary, liberationist, theoretical, and practical. She has been a professor in undergraduate, graduate, and seminary settings. Her latest volume, co-authored with Marlon Hall, is Wake Up!: Hip Hop, Christianity, and the Black Church, 2011, Abingdon Press. She works in interfaith and ecumenical contexts. Known for her 6 P’s: professor, preacher, priest, prophet, poet, and performer, Dr. Kirk-Duggan is an avid athlete and musician, who completed her first marathon (November, 2010), and practices hot yoga. She loves to tinker with her flowers, embraces laughter as her best medicine, with the quest for a foundational healthy, holistic, spiritual life; is a quilter, and engaged in using art and poetry as spiritual disciplines.
Michelene Pesantubbee is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Iowa. She specializes in Native American religious traditions primarily Native American women and religion, Native American religious movements, and Southeastern Native American religious traditions. She has taught at two large public research universities, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Iowa. For seven years she had a joint appointment at the University of Iowa in Religious Studies and American Indian Native Studies. She is the author of Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World (U of New Mexico P, 2005).
Rebecca Todd Peters is a Christian social ethicist who works primarily on globalization, economics and the environment. She is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Elon University, a mid-sized church-affiliated institution in North Carolina. She would be happy to discuss issues of transitioning from graduate school to a tenure-track position; balancing work, family, and personal life; tenure process; managing a research agenda with a heavy teaching load; and pedagogy and teaching related issues (including service-learning and engaged learning).
Nargis Virani is currently Assistant Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Arabic section coordinator at the New School. Formerly, she taught at the University of British Columbia in Canada and Washington University in St. Louis where she also headed the Arabic language program and served a term as the Director of the Center for Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures. A graduate of Harvard University (Ph. D. 1999), she has widely traveled and studied at many prestigious institutions in the Muslim world such as the University of Jordan in Amman, the Bourguiba Institute in Tunis, and al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. Her research explores intersections between Scripture (The Qur’an) and Literature in a Muslim milieu. She is currently working on two book projects. The first book entitled The Multilingual Rumi will be a book of translations of the entire multilingual corpus of Rumi’s poetry into English discussing the relationship between multilinguality and mystical discourse. The second book, tentatively entitled The Qur’an in Muslim Literary and Mystical Memory, discusses the use of the Qur’an in Muslim secular, religious, and mystico-literary writings. Dr. Virani is the author of articles published in the Encyclopedia of the Qur’an, Voices of Islam, and Comparative Studies of the South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She currently serves on the Steering Committee of the American Academy of Religion’s (AAR) Islam section. She also serves as a member on the AAR’s Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession (CREM).
Traci C. West is professor of Ethics and African American Studies at Drew University Theological School. Her recent publications include Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women's Lives Matter and editing Our Family Values: Religion and Same-Sex Marriage. In her research, teaching, and activism she focuses on intimate violence and how constructions of race inform issues of gender and sexual justice.
