Fall 2023
Section 3025 of HUMAN8
Comparative Mythology -- : Aug 15 - Dec 07 2023
This section is part of an interdisciplinary partnership that centers Native American literature, culture, and knowledge. Students are also encouraged to enroll in English 1A, Section 0755 on MW 11am-1pm with Dr. Erica Tom. All students are welcome to enroll in this Humanities class, and this section will have extra support from the Native American Center. For more information contact: Mary Churchill at mchurchill@santarosa.edu.
Ph.D., Religious Studies. University of California, Santa Barbara (1997)
Emphasis on American Indian cultural, spiritual, and religious traditions; women and religion; and religion in the United States
Dissertation: “Walking the ‘White Path’: Toward a Cherokee-Centric Hermeneutic for Interpreting Cherokee Literature” (an analysis of contemporary Cherokee women’s poetry)
M.A., Religious Studies. University of California, Santa Barbara (1991)
Thesis: “‘Their Belts Never Lied’: Continuity and Change in Cherokee Sacred Ways” (an examination of the significance of wampum belts in Cherokee culture)
B.A., Social Welfare. University of California, Berkeley (1985)
Graduated with Highest Honors in Major and Distinction in General Scholarship
Thesis: “Effective Prosecution: Empowering Battered Women” (published in the undergraduate California Legal Studies Journal, 1985)
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
“Toward a Scholarship of Liberation: Arvind Sharma’s A Primal Perspective on the Philosophy of Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79, no. 4 (December 2011): 795-802.
“In Bad Faith?: Possibilities and Perils in the Age of Faith-Based Initiatives.” Journal of the
“The Oppositional Paradigm of Purity Versus Pollution in Charles Hudson’s The Southeastern Indians,” American Indian Quarterly 20, no. 4 (fall 1996): 563-93.
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters
“Out of Bounds: Indigenous Knowing and the Study of Religion.” In Reading Native American Women: Critical/Creative Representations, edited by Inés Hernández-Ávila, 251-68.
“Reproductive Rites and Wrongs: Lessons from American Indian Religious Traditions, Historical Experience, and Contemporary Life.” In Sacred Rights: The Case for Contraception and Abortion in World Religions, edited by Daniel C. Maguire, 175-97. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
“Purity and Pollution: Unearthing an Oppositional Paradigm in the Study of Cherokee Religious Traditions.” In Native American Spirituality: A Reader, edited by Lee Irwin, 205-35.
Essays in Peer-Reviewed Journals
“Adjunctification—The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” In Living It Out: Neoliberalism and the Academy. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 35, no. 2 (fall 2019): 71-77.
“Teaching Native American Religious Traditions: Missing Persons and Silent Scripts,” response to Melanie L. Harris, Carolyn M. Jones Medine, and Helen Rhee’s “Women of Color in the Religious Studies Classroom: Silent Scripts and Contested Space.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 32, no. 1 (spring 2016): 126-30.
“Asking Hard Questions—Learning from the Wind.” In a special issue on the work of Jewish feminist theologian Judith Plaskow. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 23, no. 1 (spring 2007): 16-21.
“Response to Mary Elizabeth Hobgood’s ‘Solidarity and the Accountability of Academic Feminists and Church Activists to Typical (World-Majority) Women,’” in “JFSR Roundtable Discussion: Intellectual Struggle and Material Solidarity.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 20, no. 2 fall 2004): 157-62.
Interviews
“A Feminist in the House and Senate: An Interview with Dorothy Jensen Rupert.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 27, no. 2 (fall 2011): 109-17.
Encyclopedia Articles
“White Buffalo Calf Woman.” Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed.
“Native Americans.” In Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, edited by Bonnie Zimmerman, 535-38.
“Two-Spirit.” In Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, edited by Bonnie Zimmerman, 779-80.
“Allen, Paula Gunn.” In Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, edited by Bonnie Zimmerman, 25-26.
“Lesbianism in Microhistorical Traditions.” In Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion, edited by Serinity Young, 587-89.
“New Religions in Native American Traditions.” In Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion, edited by Serenity Young, 724-26.
“Paula Gunn Allen.” In Gay and Lesbian Biography, edited by Michael J. Tyrkus, 15-16.
Book Reviews
Review of Spirit Wars: Native North American Religions in the Age of Nation Building. By Ronald Niezen. Journalof the American Academy of Religion 70, no. 2 (June 2002): 430-33.
Review of Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears, by Robert J. Conley. American Indian Quarterly 18, no. 1 (winter 1994):130-31.
Review of The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories, by Robert J. Conley. New Scholar 11 (1993): 373-75.
Outstanding Faculty Member, Women’s Studies Student Advisory Board, Women’s Studies Program, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2006
Twenty-Ninth Annual Antoinette Brown Endowed Lecture,
Bunting Postdoctoral Fellowship, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2001-02
Faculty Equity and Excellence Award,
Rupert Costo Chair Invited Lecture,
Finalist, North American Indian Prose Award,
Junior Faculty Development Award,
Women’s Studies Dissertation Fellowship, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1994-95
Dissertation Teaching Fellowship, Northern Arizona University, 1993-94
National Women’s Studies Association Graduate Scholarship in Women’s Studies, 1993-94
Research Fellowship, D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History, Newberry Library, 1991
Rowney Graduate Fellowship in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1989-93