Did You Know…? Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

We are now more than a week into Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Since it’s not always clear to me what is generally known (or not known) about Asian Americans, let me test out a few things here.

Did you know…

 

Continue reading “Did You Know…? Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month by Grace Yia-Hei Kao”

Announcing PANAAWTM 2018 by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

As a faculty advisor and member of the local and steering committees, I’m excited to announce that the 33rd annual conference of PANAAWTM (Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry) is fast approaching–April 12-14, 2018, to be exact.

This year’s theme, “Embodied Selves: Inter-religious Engagements,” showcases PANAAWTM’s desire to broaden beyond our traditional (Christian) focus and audience. Not coincidentally, we will be meeting primarily in the Fish Interfaith Center at Chapman University.

Continue reading “Announcing PANAAWTM 2018 by Grace Yia-Hei Kao”

Introducing the 2018 Progressive Asian American Christian (PAAC) Lent Devotional by Grace Yia Hei Kao

I’ve been part of an exciting online community for the past 1.5 years called Progressive Asian American Christians (PAAC) that was founded by two women: Lydia Shiu, a pastor (at City Church San Francisco) who originally created the PAAC Facebook group, and Liz Lin, a writer whose viral blog, “The Loneliness of the Progressive Asian American Christian,” is largely responsible for populating it.

PAAC describes itself thusly:

PAAC is a community for socially, politically, and theologically progressive Asian American Christians (of East, Southeast, South, and West Asian descent, as well as Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians) to support each other and talk about faith, identity, and current events. Continue reading “Introducing the 2018 Progressive Asian American Christian (PAAC) Lent Devotional by Grace Yia Hei Kao”

Feminist Theologies: Past, Present, and Future

On February 7, 2012, a panel discussion focused on the past, present, and future of feminist theologies took place at Claremont Graduate University to celebrate the release of TheOxford Handbook on Feminist Theology.  The panel was organized by John Erickson, moderated by Grace Kao, and featured Karen Torjesen, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gina Messina-Dysert, Zayne Kassam, and Sheila Briggs as presenters.  What resulted was a terrific discussion about women, religion, and feminist theologies.  Many were in attendance and participated in the panel; for those who were unable to attend, here is a video of the presentations from that evening.  We look forward to you sharing your thoughts and comments about the past, present, and future of feminist theologies.

Finding my Voice through the Vagina Monologues By Anonymous

This post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium,  Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao.

“Are you going to the Vagina Monologues try-outs tonight?” my friend asked me last year after class.

“I hadn’t planned on it,” I replied cautiously. Truth be told, the word ‘vagina’ made me uncomfortable. There were yearly productions of the Vagina Monologues at my undergraduate institution, but I never went. I thought it was a time when women gathered and performed monologues they had written, and I thought it demeaning to have these monologues named metonymically. I did not want to be associated with the Monologues: I was in favor of women’s equality, but I did not want to claim my sexuality in so visceral a manner. In my mind, the ‘Vagina’ of Vagina Monologues just referred to the actresses, not the content.

How wrong I was.  Continue reading “Finding my Voice through the Vagina Monologues By Anonymous”

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