The Pluralism Project at Harvard UniversityWomen, Religion & Social Change II: Biographical Sketches
Leila AhmedLeila Ahmed was appointed to the Women's Studies in Religion professorship in 1999 at Harvard Divinity School; she is the first person to occupy that chair. Since 1981, she had been Professor of Women's Studies and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. While at the University of Massachusetts, she was Director of the Women's Studies program from 1992 to 1995 and Director of the Near Eastern Studies program from 1991 to 1992. In 1992, she was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University in Cairo. In 1997, she was elected to a life membership at Clare Hall in the University of Cambridge. Her publications include A Border Passage, Women and Gender in Islam: The Historical Roots of a Modern Debate and Edward William Lane: A Study of His Life and Work and of British Ideas of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century. She has also published many articles, including "Arab Culture and Writing Women's Bodies" and "Between Two Worlds: The Formation of a Turn of the Century Egyptian Feminist."
Laila Al-Marayati
Dr. Laila Al-Marayati is the spokesperson and past president of the Muslim Women's League (MWL), a Los Angeles based organization dedicated to disseminating accurate information about Islam and women and to strengthening the role of Muslim women in society. Dr. Al-Marayati has written articles and participated in numerous conferences addressing issues of concern to Muslim women; topics include basic women's rights in Islam, reproductive health and sexuality, stereotyping, violence against women and so on. In addition, Dr. Al-Marayati spearheaded the MWL's efforts on behalf of rape survivors from the war in Bosnia in 1993 and she was a member of the official US Delegation to the UN Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
Dr. Al-Marayati has also participated in numerous activities related to international religious freedom. She served as a Presidential appointee to the Commission on International Religious Freedom from 1999 to May 2001. Prior to that, she was a member of the State Department Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. She has testified before Congress and as part of the US delegation to the OSCE Human Dimensions meeting in Poland regarding religious intolerance against Muslims in Europe.
As an American of Palestinian descent, Dr. Al-Marayati frequently speaks about the rights of Palestinians. She is a member of the Board of Directors of KinderUSA, a newly formed charity whose primary focus at this time is on addressing the health and educational needs of Palestinian children living in the West Bank and Gaza.
Dr. Al-Marayati is a Board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist in private practice in Southern California. She is married to Salam Al-Marayati and is the mother of three children, Malek, Zayd and Jinan.
Sharifa Alkhateeb
Sharifa Alkhateeb is currently the Founder and Interim President of the North American Council for Muslim Women, an educational, legislative, policy, and advocacy, independent national non-profit organization. She is the President of the Muslim Education Council, a Mid-Atlantic educational non-profit organization educating school staff and administrators about Middle Eastern culture, Muslims, and Islam. She has been, since September 2001, the Middle Eastern/Muslim Team Leader for Community Resilience Project, a post-9/11 crisis counseling and referral program funded by The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), managing 30 crisis workers throughout the Middle Eastern/Muslim community of Northern Virginia. She is a writer, researcher, educational consultant, training specialist, and international public speaker with 40 years of experience with cultural communication, international cultural competency, Islam and Muslims, Muslim women, Muslim women and domestic violence, religion and the workplace, and religious diversity. She has 12 years of experience in religion and the workplace, and religion and abuse issues. Her B.A. is in English Literature and her M.A. is in Comparative Religion.
Sharifa is frequently interviewed by news media such as NPR, Worldnet T.V., Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and Voice of America. She has participated in policy development with the Aspen Institute, the American Assembly, and the Center for Strategic International Studies, and has been a consultant for several groups including the Pew Forum, The Ford Foundation, the National Council for Community and Justice, the National Cathedral, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, Afghanistan Libre, the Communications Network, Fairfax County and Montgomery County Public Schools, the Council on Islamic Education, IQRA Foundation, the U.N. Women's International Peace Initiative, and has been an editor and reader for several social studies book companies over the past 10 years. She edited the Marmaduke Pickthall translation of the Qur'an and co-authored The Arab World Notebook used in public school history classrooms nationwide. She was a staff reporter for the Saudi Gazette (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) in the late 70's, in the early 90's, was the Managing Editor of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and is an occasional journalist for the Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. From 1993-1997 Sharifa produced, wrote, and hosted a monthly television program for Fairfax County Public Schools, VA called "Middle Eastern Parenting" (still aired), worked with them for five years as a diversity trainer, and taught classes on Middle Eastern Culture to recertification-bound teachers.
Other aspects of her expertise: Sharifa was the Chair of Muslim Caucus at the U.N. 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, has 15 years of experience serving on several school board committees on human relations, social studies curriculum and book adoption, foreign language curriculum development, minority student achievement, and superintendent's advisory, and has been a youth advisor for the largest Muslim youth organizations in the U.S. for over 20 years (MSA, ISNA, MYNA). As an independent researcher, she conducted the first nationwide survey of domestic violence in the Muslim community from 1998-2000. In 2000 she created the Peaceful Families Project, a nationwide family dynamics and violence awareness program within the Muslim community, funded by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, VAWO Office. Sharifa is currently a member of the Bi-National Advisory Committee of The Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence in Seattle, WA, is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Religion and Abuse, and is a member of the Advisory Panel on Diverse Communities of the STOP Violence Against Women Grants TA Project in Washington, DC. She is also an expert consultant with the U.S. Office for Victims of Crime and the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center.
Elizabeth Amoah
Dr. Elizabeth Amoah is a Senior Lecturer and former Head of the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Ghana. She is a founding member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians. She is also helps to run the Institue of African Women in Religion and Culture at the Trinity Theological Seminary.
Dorothy A. Austin
Dorothy A. Austin is the Sedgwick Associate Minister and Chaplain to Harvard University. She also teaches as a Lecturer in Psychology and Religion at Harvard Divinity School and is Co-Master of Lowell House. Before returning to Harvard, she was Associate Professor in Religion and Psychology at Drew University and Drew Theological School. Dorothy has taught on the Harvard faculties of Divinity and Medicine, and served as Director of the Erik H. and Joan M. Erikson Center, dedicated to interdisciplinary and intergenerational work in psychology, arts, and humanities. She is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church.
Brigalia Bam
Dr. Brigalia Bam is the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa, Chancellor of the University of Port Elizabeth, and Vice-Chairperson of the University of South Africa. Educated in South Africa and abroad in teaching, social work, communications and management, Brigalia Bam has led an active public life. Her first formal employment was as a teacher and she has held a variety of posts throughout the world, which have included: Africa Regional Secretary and Coordinator of the Women Workers' Programme for the International Food and Allied Workers' Association; National Executive Secretary of the World Affiliated YWCA of South Africa; Executive Programme Secretary for the Women's Department of the World Council of Churches.
At the time of her appointment as a commissioner of the Independent Electoral Commission in 1997, Brigalia Bam was General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. She serves on several public bodies, and was the former commissioner of the South African Human Rights Commission. In addition she is Founder and President of the Women's Development Foundation and has numerous other memberships and interests. She has extensive experience in lecturing and in radio and television broadcasting and has published widely.
Sissela Bok
Sissela Bok is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. A writer and philosopher, she received her B.A. and M.A. in psychology at the George Washington University in 1957 and 1958, and her Ph.D. in philosophy at Harvard University in 1970. Bok was formerly a Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University. The third edition of her book Lying: Moral Choice in Private and Public Life (1978) was reissued in 1999 with a new Preface. Other books include Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation (1982, 1989); A Strategy for Peace: Human Values and the Threat of War (1989); Alva Myrdal: A Daughter's Memoir (1991); Common Values (1996, reissued in 2002 with a new Preface); and Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment (1998). With John Behnke, Bok has co-edited The Dilemmas of Euthanasia (1975) and, with Daniel Callahan, Ethics Teaching in Higher Education (1980). With Gerald Dworkin and R. G. Frey, she has co-authored Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide (1998).
Ann Braude
Ann Braude is Director of the Women's Studies in Religion Program and Senior Lecturer in the History of Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, where she teaches courses on the religious history of American women. As Program Director, she works with visiting scholars in women's studies at Harvard Divinity School and leads outreach efforts designed to bring the program's scholarship to the public. Her publications include Women and Religion in America (Oxford 2000) and Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in 19th-century America (Beacon 1989). Her current research focuses on the religion of American women in the contemporary period, and seeks to disprove the notion that women's public activism and religion are opposing forces in American culture. Her work will bring attention to the central roles of women's organizations in American religion.
The Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School promotes critical inquiry into the interaction between religion and gender. It sponsors research and teaching in feminist theology, biblical studies, ethics and women's history, as well as interdisciplinary scholarship on women throughout the world's religions. Each year the Program conducts an international search resulting in the appointment of five visiting scholars to the faculty as visiting lecturers. Each conducts a book-length research project on women and religion and teaches a related course to Divinity School students.
Veena Das
Dr. Veena Das is currently the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, a position she has held since 2000. From 1982 until her recent appointment, she held a professorship in Anthropology at the University of Delhi; she served on the Graduate Faculty as a Professor of Anthropology at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1997-2000. In addition, she has held numerous visiting positions at several institutions such as: the University of Chicago, Harvard University, Amherst College, the University of Heidelberg, and at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies. She has won several awards, including an honorary Doctorate in Letters Humaine from the University of Chicago in 2000, and has produced numerous publications, most recently: Remaking the World: Comparative Ethnographies on Social Suffering, Violence, and Recovery and Tradition, Pluralism and Identity.
Dr. Das' research focuses on "the working of long time cultural logics in contemporary events as well as moments of rupture and recovery." Recently, she has worked on questions of violence, social suffering, and subjectivity, paying particular attention to the ways in which institutional processes produce violence and suffering. She is currently engaged in a project that investigates the burden of disease (and subsequent health-seeking behavior) among the urban poor in Delhi, and is conducting a longitudinal study on the "Sustainability of Health of Vulnerable Families."
Shamita Das Dasgupta
Shamita Das Dasgupta is a cofounder of, Manavi, Inc., the pioneering organization in the U.S. to focus on violence against South Asian immigrant women. She has taught Psychology and Women's Studies at various universities including the New School for Social Research, Kean College, and Rutgers University - Newark, NJ. She is currently teaching a comparative criminal justice course at the NYU Law School. Shamita has published over 20 articles in the areas of her specialization: ethnicity, gender, and immigration. She is the author of two books, The Demon Slayers and Other Stories: Bengali Folktales (1995, Interlink Books) and A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles of South Asian Women in America (1998, Rutgers University Press). At this time, she is working on a book on Bengali women's rituals.
Manavi (meaning "primal woman" in Sanskrit) is a non-profit organization for women who trace their cultural heritage to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Manavi's goal is to increase awareness of women's rights in society and encourage social change to end all violence against women. Its approach is nonjudgmental, non-religious, and nonsectarian. Manavi is committed to the empowerment of South Asian women and thereby, dedicates its major efforts to facilitating women's quest for self-reliance and autonomy everywhere.
Manavi, Inc. was founded in February 1985. It is the first organization in the United States to focus on violence against women in South Asian communities. Concentrated mainly on women who reside in New Jersey, Manavi's mission is to end all forms of violence against South Asian women. We believe violence against women begins before birth with female feticide and extends to murder of girls and women. Between these two extremes lie ideas and actions that include classism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, incestuous abuse, rape, battering, and lack of opportunities. These attitudes, conditions, and behaviors perpetuate the subordination of girls and women in society and engender the different forms of violence that are committed against them.
Manavi provides necessary and critical services to women of South Asian descent during crisis. In addition, Manavi aims to assist women in rebuilding their lives that have been shattered by violence. We understand that South Asian women in the U.S. are especially vulnerable to abuse due to their cultural socialization and recent immigration. The loss of traditional family support, lack of proficiency in English, as well as unfamiliarity with the laws and services of their adopted land keep many South Asian women captive within their abusive situations. Manavi's mission is to reach out and provide supportive services to these women.
Sheila R. Decter
Sheila R. Decter is one of Boston's outstanding professionals in the Community Relations field. She has initiated and staffed broad interfaith and interracial coalitions for over two decades in support of civil rights, public education, affordable housing, reproductive rights, provision of services to persons with AIDS, advocacy on behalf of human services and immigrant needs, and efforts to improve responses to domestic violence. Sheila presently serves as Director of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, a new Boston area group devoted to development of progressive public policy and efforts for social and economic justice. Previously she served as Executive Director of the New England Region of the American Jewish Congress, a position she held for 22 years, and as Assistant Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Metropolitan Boston. She came to professional community relations work after 13 years of teaching at the college level at the University of Wisconsin, Lasell College in Newton, Massachusetts and Northeastern University. At Lasell, she served as Chairman of the Faculty. She participated in the UN Decade of Women Conference in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985 and on numerous boards and commissions to improve the status of women.
At the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action,
We believe that the passionate pursuit of social and economic justice that has characterized so much of Jewish life in this country and elsewhere derives authentically from the Jewish tradition and deserves full and energetic expression in our own time.
We believe that very many American Jews, of all generations, are eager to reconnect to that pursuit and would welcome the opportunity to do so in concert with others.
We believe that the effective transmission of these central Jewish values to new generations requires agencies and institutions that speak and act boldly in defense of civil rights and civil liberties, that work on behalf of social and economic justice, and that join with other like-minded groups in our society on behalf of these ends.
We believe that American Jews have been and must continue to be a powerful voice on behalf of a society more fair and more free, and that in so being we contribute both to American democracy and to Jewish continuity.
Accordingly: We hereby declare ourselves The Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA), a membership organization based in New England, eager to enter into partnership with other progressive Jewish organizations across the land, ready to do battle on behalf of the values we cherish, open to all those in our community who share our hopes and our commitments.
Dhammananda bhikkhuni (Chatsumarn Kabilsingh)
Venerable Dhammananda was born in 1944 as Chatsumarn Kabilsingh. She was a professor of Buddhist Philosophy at Thammasat University in Bangkok for 27 years. She has also taught monks studying at Maha Culalongkorn Buddhist University as well as at Thammasat University in Bangkok. One of the very few Thai Buddhist scholars fluent in English, Venerable Dhammananda received her M.A. degree from McMaster University, Canada, and Ph.D. degree from Magadh University, India.
On February 6, 2001, Chatsumarn retired from Thammasat University to become Samaneri Dhammananda when she received novice ordination from Venerable Bhikkhuni Saddha Sumana with Ven. Dhammaloka Mahathera, Deputy Chief Sangharaja of Amarapura, Sri Lanka as an organizer in the presence of five senior mahatheras of the Siam Nikaya. She is now residing at Songdhammakalyani Temple in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand.
Her ordination as a Theravada nun in Thailand has stirred a controversy as the established Thai sangha does not recognize the institution of nuns within the monastic tradition in the country. As such she sought ordination in Sri Lanka which has a more liberal policy towards the ordination of women as nuns within the Theravada tradition. In March 2002 she was interviewed by CNN regarding her reasons for becoming a Buddhist nun after over 20 years as a professor in a university.
Venerable Dhammananda has visited Malaysia several times in the past at the invitation of Buddhist Gem Fellowship (BGF) and Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia (YBAM). A prolific speaker, her topics have always been thought-provoking, especially on the subjects of the environment and of women from a Buddhist perspective. Her most recent visit to Malaysia at the invitation of the BGF was in June 2000 when she was on her way to speak at the Global Conference on Buddhism in Singapore.
Songdhammakalyani Temple provides monastic setting for international women to come for training and practice. It is also a center to train ordained nuns.
Buddhasavika foundation is responsible for various training and retreats including publications and tapes. There are two regular newsletters available both in Thai and in English.
Diana L. Eck
Diana L. Eck is Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University and Director of the Pluralism Project. As a scholar of the religious traditions of India, she has published Banaras, City of Light and Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. Her book Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras is about interreligious dialogue and Christian faith in a world of many faiths. Her latest book, A New Religious America, was published by HarperSF in June 2001. With the Pluralism Project, she has turned her attention to the United States and produced the CD-ROM, On Common Ground: World Religions in America, for which she received a National Humanities Medal in 1998 from President Clinton. She is a member of the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, the Committee on the Study of Religion, and the Divinity School Faculty. She and her partner, Dorothy Austin, are Masters of Lowell House, one of Harvard's twelve residential houses for undergraduates.
The Pluralism Project studies and documents the growing religious diversity of the United States, with a special view to its new immigrant religious communities. In the research of the Pluralism Project, we have had three goals:
1. To document some of the changes taking place in America's cities and towns by beginning to map their new religious demography, with old and new mosques and Islamic centers, Sikh gurdwaras, Hindu and Jain temples, Buddhist temples and meditation centers, Zoroastrian and Taoist religious centers.
2. To study how these religious traditions are changing as they take root in American soil and develop in a new context. How are they beginning to recreate their community life, religious institutions, rites and rituals, and forms of transmission in the cultural environment of the United States?
3. To explore how the United States is changing as we begin to appropriate this new religious diversity in our public life and institutions, and in emerging forms of interfaith relationships.
For more information about the work of the Pluralism Project, please see: http://www.pluralism.org
Dorothy Eck
Dorothy Eck has been involved in public service in the state of Montana for over 35 years. In 1967, as President of the Montana League of Women Voters, she helped convince the public and the legislature to call for a state Constitutional Convention to rewrite the Montana Constitution. As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, she was elected its Vice President and worked for strong open government and active citizen participation. Her work also included a constitutional commitment to teaching about the cultural integrity of American Indians in the public schools. For twenty years, Dorothy Eck served as a Democratic state senator where she was a vigorous advocate of women and children's health and a strong educational system. In May of 2003 she will receive an honorary doctorate from Montana State University in Bozeman.
Nawal El Saadawi
Nawal El Saadawi is a novelist, a psychiatrist, and a writer who is well known both in the Arab countries and in many other parts of the world. Her novels and her books on the situation of women have had a deep effect on successive generations of young women over the last three decades.
As a result of her literary and scientific writings she has had to face numerous difficulties and even dangers in her life. In 1972 she lost her job in the Egyptian government. The magazine, Health, which she had founded and edited for more than three years, was closed down. In 1981 President Sadat put her in prison. She was released one month after his assassination. From 1988 to 1993 her name figured on death lists issued by some fanatical terrorist organizations.
On June 15, 1991, the government issued a decree which closed down the Arab Women's Solidarity Association, over which she presides, and handed over its funds to the association called Women in Islam. Six months before this decree, the government closed down the magazine, Noon, published by the Arab Women's Solidarity Association. She was editor-in-chief of this magazine.
Nawal El Saadawi has been awarded several national and international literary prizes, and has lectured in many universities and participated in many international and national conferences. Her works have been translated into many languages all over the world, and some of them are taught in a number of university colleges in different countries. A complete list of her publications is available at http://www.nawalsaadawi.net/bio.htm
Blu Greenberg
Blu Greenberg, author and lecturer, is President of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) and chaired the First and Second International Conferences on Feminism and Orthodoxy in 1997 and 1998. Blu has served on the boards of many organizations, including EDAH, the Covenant Foundation, Project Kesher, U.S. Israel Women-to-Women, the National Jewish Family Center and the Jewish Book Council. She was founding chair of the Federation Task Force on Jewish Women. She has participated in many interfaith and inter-ethnic enterprises and was co-founder of the Dialogue Group of Jewish and Palestinian women. Blu Greenberg is the author of several books including On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition and How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household. She is married to Rabbi Irving Greenberg; they have five children and fourteen grandchildren.
The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance's mission is to expand the spiritual, ritual, intellectual, and political opportunities for women within the framework of halakha. We advocate meaningful participation and equality for women in family life, synagogues, houses of learning, and Jewish communal organizations to the full extent possible within halakha. Our commitment is rooted in the belief that fulfilling this mission will uplift individual and communal life for all Jews.
Daphne Hampson
Daphne Hampson holds a personal chair in Post-Christian Thought in the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews, U.K. She publishes largely in the field of constructive systematic theology and historical theology, from a feminist perspective. She is post-Christian. Her books are Theology and Feminism (Blackwells, 1990), After Christianity (SCM Press1996/ TPI 1997, second edn. SCM Press 2002), Christian Contradictions: The Structures of Lutheran and Catholic Thought (CUP, 2001), and she edited Swallowing a Fishbone? Feminist Theologians Debate Christianity (SPCK, 1996). At present she is working on a volume provisionally entitled God in Question: Theology, Feminism and Continental Philosophy. Daphne much enjoys having a public interface, both media work and public lecturing. She was the founding president of the European Society of Women for Theological Research.
Grove Harris
Grove Harris is the Managing Director for the Pluralism Project. Since joining the Project in 1993, her research and writing has included the section on Paganism for the CD-Rom On Common Ground: World Religions in America, contributions to publications such as Reclaiming Quarterly and Park Ridge Center Newsletter and a chapter on Wicca and Healing, "Healing through Chanting and Connection," for Religious Healing, forthcoming from Oxford University Press, Spring 2004. She speaks regularly on behalf of the Pluralism Project at conferences and schools, as well as presenting her own work at academic conferences.
She teaches courses on World Religions in Boston at the University of Massachusetts/Boston, as well as teaching at adult religious retreats, and leading a Maidens' group for girls ages 13-16. She has led consensus training workshops in Germany and England. Her community activism has served causes including peace activism, urban open space, economic development for women, welfare rights, and religious freedom.
Her background is in Race, Gender and Class studies. She earned her B.A. in Women's Studies, Business, and Religion from the University of Massachusetts (1992). Her Masters in Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School (1996) incorporated studies of organizational development and business management into the study of religion and ethics. She is an initiated Wiccan Priestess, and leads public rituals for groups ranging in size from 20 to 300.
Beverly W. Harrison
Beverly Wildung Harrison is retired from her position as Caroline Williams Beaird Professor of Ethics at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, where she taught for 34 years. She was the first woman President of The North American Society of Christian Ethics and served on the Board of the American Academy of Religion. She has been an activist in a number of academic and ecclesial settings, has lectured widely and has been Visiting Professor in Korea, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany. Beverly Harrison has been a founder of a range of religiously based organizing networks, and has published and co-authored a number of books, including Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion and Making the Connections: Essays In Feminist Social Ethics. A second Volume of the latter is nearing completion. She was a part of The Mudflower Collective which published God's Fierce Whimsey: The Role of Christian Feminism in Theological Education.
Sherif Hetata
Sherif Hetata is a writer and medical doctor who was involved in militant politics for many years, and has spent thirteen years in prison and two in exile. As a result of his activities and writings he has faced harassment and discrimination from government authorities and censorship of some of his writings. He has traveled to many parts of the world, attended conferences and meetings in many countries, contributed articles and studies to Egyptian newspapers and magazines and worked in a number of different fields: governmental, political, academic and international. A complete list of his publications is available at http://www.nawalsaadawi.net/bio.htm
Claudia Highbaugh
Claudia A. Highbaugh is Chaplain, Associate Director of Ministerial Studies, and Lecturer on Ministry at Harvard Divinity School (HDS). She came to HDS in 1993; previously she was the associate university chaplain at Yale University and lecturer at Yale Divinity School. In the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), she has served as a delegate to the National Council of Churches Governing Board and both the General Board and the Administrative Committee of the General Church. Her recent community involvement includes retreats and workshops in Bible study and the work of the womanist community, as well as preaching and teaching as an advocate for children and youth, especially in the areas of literacy and health care. Her recent speaking and teaching engagements have focused in the areas of history, story, and the development of a strong spiritual basis for faith and leadership for children and youth. Currently, she is involved in several writing projects in the area of spiritual development and enrichment for young adults and women in Christian faith communities.
Mary Hunt
Mary Elizabeth Hunt, Ph.D., is a Catholic feminist theologian. She is the co-founder and Co-Director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, Maryland. Dr. Hunt is active in the women-church movement, a network of feminist base communities rooted in the Catholic tradition. During the 2000-2001 academic year she was a Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at Harvard Divinity School, where she worked on issues related to same-sex love and religion in the United States. She is currently writing on sexual ethics from a feminist religious perspective. Her many publications include Good Sex: Feminist Perspectives from the World's Religions (edited with Patricia Beattie Jung and Radhika Balakrishnan) and Fierce Tenderness: A Feminist Theology of Friendship.
The Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual is a feminist educational center, a network of justice-seeking people that began in 1983 in response to the need for theological, ethical and liturgical development for and by women from a variety of faith traditions. WATER works locally as well as nationally and internationally on programs, projects and publications that help people bring their feminist religious values to the service of social change. WATER offers workshops and resource materials, liturgies and counseling, study opportunities and exchange programs to share this wealth of insights and commitments.
Swanee Hunt
Swanee Hunt, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, is Director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard's Kennedy School. She served as the U.S. Ambassador to Austria from 1993-1997, where she hosted negotiations and international symposia to focus efforts on securing peace during conflicts in neighboring states. She has worked extensively with Bosnian women and with religious leaders to unite across war lines and, for this work, was named "Woman of Peace" by the Together for Peace Foundation in Rome. She has published articles in the International Herald Tribune and Boston Globe, among others. She is a contributing editor to American Benefactor, and in 1997, "Women's Vital Voices" appeared in Foreign Affairs. She is a founder of the Women's Foundation of Colorado, and her own foundation, the Hunt Alternatives Fund, which worked with over 400 neighborhood-based organizations during a 16-year span. She has a B.A. in Philosophy, two Master's degrees (in Psychology and Religion) and a doctorate in Theology. She is married to symphony conductor Charles Ansbacher; they have three children.
The mission of the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) is to analyze and respond to public policies that impact women, and to both inform and learn from women who impact public policies, with the ultimate goal of creating a world more balanced in opportunity, more secure, and more hospitable for all people. Primary activities concern:
* Encouraging and enhancing teaching on women and public policy: developing new courses, case studies, executive programs, and materials for classroom use and coordinating information about available gender-related courses throughout Harvard University.
* Facilitating scholarship on women and public policy: conducting, coordinating, and commissioning research; developing fellowships and small grants for practitioners and scholars; acting as a clearinghouse on gender-related research; and organizing conferences, seminars, and workshops.
* Enriching the culture at the Kennedy School of Government: organizing events that facilitate interaction among high-level and grassroots women leaders, students, and faculty at the School; enhancing the dialogue on policy issues to include gender; providing role models, networking contacts, and examples of leadership for women; assisting women students in their professional development; and bringing the interests and participation of women of color into central focus.
* Disseminating materials on women and public policy: distributing occasional papers and research results; maintaining close working relationships with and maintaining a web site with links to related research centers.
* Influencing the public policy process: advancing women's leadership in the public arena; strengthening the advocacy power of grassroots women; and mobilizing women and men, political leaders, and activists around policy initiatives of concern to women.
Alma Abdul-Hadi Jadallah
Alma Abdul-Hadi Jadallah's work focuses primarily on the intersection between conflict resolution research and practice in communities and organizations. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. Her research explores the perceived work and role of those working in conflict resolution post-September 11. Professionally, she is an organizational consultant at Freddie Mac.
Active in her community, Mrs. Jadallah serves as a board member for the Institute for Victims of Trauma, Al-Hewar Center, and Partners for Peace. She is currently President of the Board of Northern Virginia Mediation Services. Mrs. Jadallah is a certified mediator in the State of Virginia. She is married to Sami Jadallah and mother of Jamil, Laila and Diala.
The Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University is one of the leading centers specializing in the study of deep-rooted social conflicts and the processes that may lead to their peaceful resolution or transformation. It awards degrees of Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy in Conflict Analysis and Resolution to students who successfully complete these programs. The institute also conducts independent research and applied practice programs at the local, national and international level.
Devaki Jain
Devaki Jain, development economist, graduated from Oxford in 1963, taught Public Finance Social Statistics in Delhi University, and held a fellowship at Centre for Advanced Studies at the Delhi School of Economics to study the Indus Waters dispute between India and Pakistan (1963-67). She was a Fulbright Fellow, attached both to Harvard and Boston Universities, in 1983, and a Fellow at IDS, University of Sussex, in 1994. She received an Honorary Doctorate in Economics from the University of Durban, Westville, in 1999, and retired as Director of the Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST) in 1994.
Azza Karam
Azza Karam is currently a Program Director at the Women's Department at the World Conference on Religion and Peace. She has worked since the 1980s in the fields of gender, development, human rights, democratization, conflict, and political Islam. From 1996 to 1998, Dr. Karam worked at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) in Stockholm, Sweden, where she founded and managed the Gender and Arab world programs. From 1998-2000, she was a Program Manager at the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict, and a Lecturer in Politics at the Queens University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her books include Islamisms and the State (Macmillan, 1998); Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers (Stockholm, 1998); and Transnational Political Islam (Pluto, forthcoming). She has worked with the UNDP, UNESCO, and OSCE on enhancing women's political performance through carrying out training programs to that effect in a number of countries.
The World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP) started the Women's Program in May 1998 to ensure that religious women's commitments and concerns were taken into account in all areas of Religions for Peace involvement, and promoting the role of religious women's organizations for the common good. Since its inception, the program has launched a Global Network of Religious Women's Organizations, encompassing nearly 400 religious organizations all over the world, and is actively engaged with the mobilization and capacity building for women of faith working on issues of HIV/AIDS, conflict and peace building. In addition, the program acts as a link between women of faith and their organizations and the international development community in order to mainstream the concerns, contributions, and leadership of such women.
Shulamith Koenig
Shulamith Koenig is the Executive Director and Founder of PDHRE, People's Movement (formerly Decade) for Human Rights Education. "Shula" spearheaded a worldwide human rights education advocacy and implementation campaign and the promotion of an implementation strategy -- a Decade of Human Rights Education -- with the UN Human Rights Center (now the office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights), the UN Commission on Human Rights, and at the Vienna Conference. These efforts resulted in the launching of the UN Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2005) in December 1994. For the last 14 years, she has been dedicated to promoting, facilitating and developing human rights education and learning, directed towards economic and social transformation worldwide. She has organized and conducted consultations and workshops introducing the learning about human rights as an economic, human and social development strategy. These have been held with educators, human rights advocates, grassroots communities and community leaders in Asia, Africa, Central Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. She is currently facilitating an initiative working in human rights education (HRE) at the community level; for that purpose she has initiated, edited and published several books and manuals for HRE. Recently, she published the workbook Passport to Dignity, connecting the Beijing Platform of Action to the human rights framework. Shula was and is an Israeli Palestinian peace activist who has worked as an industrial engineer, a writer, a lecturer, and an award-winning sculptor.
People's Movement for Human Rights Education (PDHRE) is a nonprofit international organization founded in 1989. PDHRE has developed and facilitated training in human rights education for social transformation in more then 60 countries around the world. PDHRE serves as a comprehensive "extension service" to energize, and motivate communities to embark on a life long process of holistic learning about human rights as relevant to their daily struggles and concerns, recognizing the viability of the holistic human rights framework as a powerful tool for action, developing: "A new political culture based on human rights" (Nelson Mandela).
Programs and projects are demand-driven, designed to respond to self-defined needs and requests for assistance and advice regarding formal and informal learning about human rights. International and local educators, human rights experts, and community workers collaborate to develop meaningful methodologies and strategies to make the programs and projects possible. PDHRE programs are planned by, for, and with communities to: catalyze and enhance human rights mentoring and monitoring; promote gender equality; enhance local human and social development programs -- guided by the human rights framework; take actions to overcome discrimination; strengthen citizens' equal and informed participation in the decision-making, problem-solving processes; and enable women and men to become agents of change.
PDHRE has established five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and South Asia. Drawing on its rich experience and perception of needs, and with the enthusiasm of local communities, PDHRE is facilitating the development of HUMAN RIGHTS CITIES. This is a historic initiative in which programs are developed to examine traditional beliefs, collective memory and aspirations, guided by the commitments made and obligations undertaken by their governments, which have ratified numerous human rights conventions. In the Human Rights City governing bodies and community institutions and groups learn about human rights as related to their life in the city -- to assure that all laws, policies, resources and relationships in the communityare upheld, and to maintain the dignity and serve the well being of all its membership. To date, 12 human rights cities are in development and 20 will be developed in the coming three years.
The program is driven by an exciting and expansive definition of human rights learning as a tool for political, economic and social change. Human rights education highlights the normative and empirical power and limits of human rights as a tool in individual and collective efforts to address inequalities, injustices, and abuses at home, in the work place, in the streets, prisons, courts, and so on. Even in "democratic" societies, citizens and policy-makers must learn to understand human rights and the obligations and the responsibilities, which they entail in a holistic and comprehensive way, and they must learn to monitor and enforce human rights effectively and efficiently. The Human Rights Cities initiative seeks to expand, facilitate and institutionalize this process. Regional Learning Institutions for Human Rights Education (RLIHRE) are adjacent to one of the human rights cities, where trainees will undertake fieldwork in human rights education at the community level. The objective of the RLIHREs is to train and support new generations/cadres of human rights educators who will in turn go back to their communities and constituencies to establish ongoing programs for learning about the human rights framework as relevant to people's daily lives, and systematically attempt to reach all levels of society in their countries.
Since its inception, PDHRE has worked very closely with community-based women organizations. At the Beijing Women's Conference, PDHRE held a nine-day Training Institution and has since developed and facilitated numerous training about the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, CEDAW. For that purpose, a large array of visual and written materials, introducing a holistic human rights framework to women, were developed: Women Hold Up The Sky, a dramatic video series of eight short compelling stories was produced in 1999 to introduce communities to the human rights of women and girls, as protected by CEDAW. Recently published is Passport to Dignity, connecting the 12 areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action to the human rights framework. The guide and workbook use the comprehensive framework of the Platform to demonstrate the holistic nature of human rights as a powerful tool for action in the achievement of full equality, well being and participation in the decisions that determine women's lives. PDHRE publications are meant as a dynamic and interactive process whereby readers and users can adopt the human rights framework in their actions.
Sylvia Marcos
Dr. Sylvia Marcos researches and writes on gender issues in ancient and contemporary Mexico. She has been awarded the H.W. Luce visiting professorship at Union Theological Seminary, New York City. Currently she is visiting professor of Mesoamerican Religions and Gender in the School of Religion at Claremont Graduate University. Her academic appointments have included teaching postgraduate level courses in Psychology and Sociology of Religion at Harvard University.
Other awards she has received include the Rockefeller Humanist in Residence Award at the Women's Studies Program of Hunter College in New York City, and research fellowships for the Women's Program at Harvard University, the Five College Women's Studies Research Center (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith, University of Massachusetts), and the Humanities Research Institute (HRI), University of California, Irvine.
She is a member of the editorial board of Religion, editorial advisor for Concilium: International Review of Theology, and international editor for Gender and Society. She has served on the International Connections Committee of the American Academy of Religion and on the board of the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics. She is Secretary for International Affairs of the Permanent Board of Directors for the Asociación Latinoamericana para el Estudio de las Religiones (ALER).
In Mexico, Dr. Marcos is a research associate in Religion and Society with the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (ENAH). She is also a founding member of the Permanent Seminar on Gender and Anthropology with the Institute for Anthropological Research at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IIA-UNAM). At the Colegio de México she is a member of the ongoing seminar on Reproductive Health and Society. Previous academic positions include professor of social and of sexual psychology at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Centro de Derechos Humanos Don Sergio for indigenous women's rights.
Dr. Marcos is a consultant for several international organizations (NGOs) and funding agencies related to gender issues in North-South interactions and indigenous women's movements.
Melanie A. May
Melanie A. May has been Professor of Theology at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York, since 1992, and Vice President for Academic Life and Dean of the Faculty since January 2000. From September 1992 to December 2000, she was Dean of the Divinity School's Program for the Study of Women and Gender in Church and Society, a program that includes research, public events, and advocacy around women's roles as religious leaders.
Dr. May is also a leader in the worldwide ecumenical movement. She has been a member of the World Council of Churches Commission on Faith and Order since 1984, and of the Standing Commission since 1991. In 1998, she was elected Vice Moderator of the Commission. She was also appointed by the WCC General Secretary to be a member of the ten-member Reference Group on Human Sexuality to offer counsel and guidance to churches' worldwide as they respond to multiple aspects of this controversial issue, including homosexuality and HIV/AIDS. From 1987 to 1995, Dr. May was Chair of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA Commission on Faith and Order, and was involved in its work on Christian-Muslim relations.
The author of numerous articles in collected volumes, journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, Dr. May is also the author of A Body Knows: A Theopoetics of Death and Resurrection and of Bonds of Unity: Women, Theology, and the Worldwide Church, and editor of several books. Her current research is focused on rethinking Christian theological responses to war and violence, including responses to violence against women.
Dr. May earned her A.M. and Ph.D. in the Study of Religion at Harvard University, her M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School, and her B.A. in Religion and Peace Studies from Manchester College (Ind.). She is an ordained minister of the American Baptist Churches USA.
Ellie Pierce
Ellie Pierce is the Research Director of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. She completed her B.A. in Anthropology and International Studies, with a core in Religious Studies, from Macalester College in 1988. She earned her Master of Theological Studies degree from the Harvard Divinity School in 1996. Ellie began working for the Pluralism Project as a student field researcher in San Francisco, California, where she documented Jain, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian communities. She was a section editor for the CD-ROM On Common Ground: World Religions in America and co-editor of World Religions in Boston: A Guide to Communities and Resources.
Judith Plaskow
Judith Plaskow is Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College, where she has taught since 1979, and a Jewish feminist theologian. She is author or editor of several important books in women's studies and religion, including one of the first feminist dissertations in religious studies, Sex, Sin, and Grace: Women's Experience and the Theologies of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. With Carol P. Christ, she co-edited Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion and Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, anthologies widely used in many women's studies and religious studies courses. With Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, she co-founded the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and co-edited it for its first decade (1985-94). Her book Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective is the first full-length Jewish feminist theology. She is a co-founder of B'not Esh, a Jewish feminist spirituality collective that has been meeting annually since 1981.
Terry Kay Rockefeller
Terry Kay Rockefeller produces documentary films and videos for public television. She was a member of the team that created the long-running science series, NOVA. Among her other credits are Eyes on the Prize, a history of the civil rights and black power movements; The Great Depression; America's War on Poverty; and I'll Make Me a World, an examination of African-American arts in the 20th century, all produced at Blackside, Inc., America's leading African-American production company. Rockefeller was also executive project manager of On Common Ground, a CD-ROM documenting the religious diversity of present-day America, produced by Harvard professor Diana Eck and the Pluralism Project. Terry's sister, Laura Rockefeller, was killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Since May of 2002, Terry has worked with September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows to honor Laura's life and try to insure that other families throughout the world do not experience the tragic and violent deaths of their innocent relatives.
Lynn Szwaja
Lynn Szwaja is Deputy Director for Creativity & Culture at the Rockefeller Foundation and is responsible for developing and administering programs in the arts and humanities. The division's annual budget of $17 million, which she helps to oversee, supports humanities scholars, media and performing artists, museums, and civil society initiatives in cultural, educational, and religious institutions in the U.S., Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Lynn manages the Rockefeller Foundation Resident Humanities Fellowships Program, and an international initiative on the role of religion in building civil society. She studied religion at Yale University and has worked at the Shaker Museum at Sabbathday Lake, the Yale Art Library, and as a private consultant to several foundations and arts organizations before joining the staff of the Rockefeller Foundation.
The Rockefeller Foundation is a knowledge-based, global foundation with a commitment to enrich and sustain the lives and livelihoods of poor and excluded people throughout the world. The work of the Foundation is carried out by four programmatic themes and a single cross-theme. The four themes are: Creativity & Culture, which works to preserve and renew the cultural heritage of people who have been excluded from the benefits of a globalizing world, to promote the free flow of ideas in the public sphere and to support diverse creative expression in the arts and humanities; Food Security, which provides support for work that helps achieve food security for all through the generation of agricultural policies, institutions and innovations that can provide sustainable livelihoods for the rural poor in regions of developing countries bypassed by the Green Revolution; Health Equity, which pursues the reduction of avoidable and unfair differences in the health status of populations; and Working Communities, which seeks to transform poor urban neighborhoods into working communities by increasing employment rates, improving urban schools, and enhancing participation in the democratic process. The cross-theme, Global Inclusion, works to ensure that globalization processes are more democratic and equitable and benefit the most vulnerable, disenfranchised populations, cultures and communities around the world.
Inés Talamantez
Inés Talamantez received her Ph.D. from UC San Diego. She has been involved with the Women's Studies Program since its inception. Professor Talamantez has been a member of the faculty in the Religious Studies Department at UCSB since 1978. She specializes in Native American religious studies and philosophies, Native American literature, comparative literature, ethnopoetics, oral traditions, translation theory, anthropology of religion, religion and healing, Chicana/o Studies, Mexican culture, and women and religion. She has also been Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University since 1991.
Professor Talamantez's publications include "The Goddess Within, 'Isánáklésh Gotal: Introducing Apache Girls to the World of Spiritual and Cultural Values." Recent publications include Native American Religions An Interdisciplinary Approach, "The Influencing of Events Both Natural and Supernatural" (an essay in Navajo Witchcraft by Clyde Kluckhohn), and "The Religious Contours of New Mexico: Contemporary Native American Religious Traditions" (a chapter in Religious Cultures in Modern New Mexico).
Yifa
Yifa has been a nun at Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Taiwan since 1979. She received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University in 1996, was named among the "Ten Outstanding Young Persons" in Taiwan in 1997, and received the "Outstanding Women in Buddhism Award" in 2003. She has been an administrator at Fo Guang Shan Buddhist College and at Hsi Lai University in Rosemead, California, a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University, and a faculty member at National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan. Now she is on the faculty of Hsi Lai University.
During these years Yifa has been engaged in interfaith dialogues, some of which were supported by UNESCO, and was a contributor to the "Safe Motherhood Project" by UNICEF in the South Asia Office. Her current research focuses on monasticism and women in Buddhism. She is working on "Women in Buddhism through the Ages" and a project to develop a Database of the Biographies of Chinese Buddhist Women. She is also the author of The Origin of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China, by Hawaii University Press, and Safeguarding the Heart: a Buddhist Response to Suffering and September 11, by Lantern Books, NY.
Greater Boston Buddhist Cultural Center (GBBCC) is a branch temple of Fo Guang Shan. GBBCC embraces the vision of Humanistic Buddhism: to disseminate Buddhist values for the benefit of humanity. It strives to serve the community by providing educational opportunities, sponsoring cultural events, engaging in charity work, and conducting worship and meditation services.
Jean Zaru
Jean Zaru is the presiding clerk of the Ramallah Friends Meeting in Palestine. As a Palestinian woman living under Israeli military rule, who at the same time finds herself in a traditional culture, her life has been devoted to the struggle for liberation -- liberation for Palestinians, for women, and for all peoples. She has done this through her work in her own community and internationally. For many years Jean taught religion and ethics at the Friends Schools in Ramallah. She served as president of the YWCA of Jerusalem and as a member of the national board of YWCA of Jordan and the YWCA of Palestine. From 1983-1991 she served as the vice president of the World YWCA. Jean served as a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches from 1975-1983, and from 1981-1991 she was a member of the Working Group on Interfaith Dialogue of the WCC. She was twice elected to serve as a member of the International Council of the World Conference for Religion and Peace. Jean serves as a volunteer consultant and resource person for many church-related organizations, including the Middle East Council of Churches and particularly on the subjects of Islam and human rights. Jean is one of the founding members of Sabeel, an ecumenical Palestinian Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem, and is presently the vice-chair of its board. She is also a board member of Wi'am Conflict Resolution Center in Bethlehem. Jean was invited as a Dorothy Cadbury fellow to Selly Oak Colleges in 1993 and was also invited to spend a term at Hartford Seminary in 1992. She has been the keynote speaker at numerous conferences around the world and her papers have been published in many books. She continues to struggle for human rights and women's rights and continues her work in interfaith dialogue with other persons of faith.