Margaret D. Kamitsuka
Francis W. and Lydia L. Davis Professor Emeritus of Religion
Oberlin College — Department of Religion
10 North Professor Street
Oberlin, OH 44074
Margaret.Kamitsuka@oberlin.edu
Education
Ph.D., Religious Studies, Yale University
M.Phil., Religious Studies, Yale University
M.A.R., Theology, Yale Divinity School, summa cum laude
B.A., French, University of California, Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa
Teaching (Oberlin College)
Promoted to Professor: 2019
Associate Professor, Gender and Religion
2007—2019
Assistant Professor, Gender and Religion
2002—2007
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow
2000—2002
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion
1999—2000
Visiting Instructor of Gender and Women’s Studies
Spring 1999
Visiting Instructor of Religion
Spring 1997, Fall 1997, Spring 1998
Books
Desirable Belief: A Theology of Eros (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2024) [View Book]
Unborn Bodies: Resurrection and Reproductive Agency (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2023) [View Book]
Co-editor (with Rebecca Todd Peters), The T & T Clark Reader in Abortion and Religion: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives (London: T&T Clark/Bloomsbury Publishers, 2023) [View Book]
Abortion and the Christian Tradition: A Pro-choice Theological Ethic (Westminster John Knox Press, 2019) [View Book]
Editor: The Embrace of Eros: Bodies, Desires, and Sexuality in Christianity (Fortress Press, 2010) [View Book]
Feminist Theology and the Challenge of Difference (Oxford University Press, 2007) [View Book]
Select Essays
“The Traumatization of Reproductive Loss in Christian Pro-life Discourse and Rituals,” in Bearing Witness: Intersectional Perspectives on Trauma Theology, ed. Karen O’Donnell and Katie Cross (SCM, 2022)
“The Resurrection and Unborn Beings: The Seeds of a Materialist Emergence Proposal,” Theology Today 78, no. 2 (2021): 170-181. https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736211004903
“Disabled Bodies on Earth and in Heaven: Eschatology and the Ethics of Selective Abortion,” Journal of Religious Ethics 49, no. 2 (July 2021)—special issue on reproductive ethics, for which I was the editor and wrote the introduction: “Women’s Reproductive Authority in Religious Ethics,” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jore.12355
“Prolife Christian Romance Novels: A Sign That the Abortion-as-Murder Center is Not Holding?” special issue of Christianity & Literature on Literature of/about the Christian Right 69, no. 1 (2020): 36-52
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752347
“Unwanted Pregnancy, Abortion, and Maternal Authority: A Prochoice Theological Argument,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 34, no. 2 (Fall 2018): 41-57
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/703388/pdf
“Sexual Pleasure,” in The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality and Gender, ed. Adrian Thatcher (Oxford University Press, online 2014; print 2015): 505-522 http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199664153.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199664153-e-010?rskey=sFyeS5&result=3
“Feminist Scholarship and Its Relevance for Political Engagement: The Test Case of Abortion in the U.S.,”Religion and Gender 1, no. 1 (2011): 18-43 https://brill.com/view/journals/rag/1/1/article-p18_2.xml
“Introduction” (pp. 1-12) and “Sex in Heaven? Eschatological Eros and the Resurrection of the Body” (pp. 261-275), in The Embrace of Eros: Bodies, Desires, and Sexuality in Christianity, ed., Margaret D. Kamitsuka (Fortress Press, 2010)
“Sin and Power: Poststructuralist and Postcolonial Theories” (pp. 153-57) and dialog boxes: “Critiques of Poststructuralism” (p. 159) and “Sin as Social or Structural” (p. 134) in Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes, ed. Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland (Fortress Press, 2005)
“Toward a Feminist Postmodern and Postcolonial Interpretation of Sin,” Journal of Religion 84, no. 2 (April 2004): 179-211
“Reading the Raced and Sexed Body in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple: Repatterning White Feminist and Womanist Hermeneutics,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 19, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 45-66
Conference Papers, Presentations, and Public Lectures
“Reproductive Justice as a Human Right: Promise and Limitations,” Societas Ethica Conference on Human Rights – Critical Perspectives, Uppsala/Sigtuna, Sweden (Aug 23, 2024)
“Augustine and Austen on Blushing: A Foucauldian Analysis of Desire,” Foucault and the Study of Religion Seminar, American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, San Antonio (Nov 20, 2023)
“Leveraging Heaven in Reproductive Discourses,” Goodspeed Lecture Series, Denison University (March 21, 2023)
“A Vision for Reproductive Ethics” panel presentation, Society for Christian Ethics Annual Meeting, Chicago (Jan 6, 2023)
“Vulnerability and Reproductive Trauma: A Theological Response,” Societas Ethica Conference on Vulnerability and Integrity, University of Zürich, Switzerland (Aug 25, 2022)
“The Unborn and the Afterlife: Eschatology and Reproductive Ethics,” Society for the Study of Theology Annual Conference, Warwick University, UK (March 30, 2022).
“When Moral Common Ground is Elusive: Using Parables to Cross Abortion Battle Lines,” Searching for Common Moral Ground Conference, Protestant Theological University, Utrecht, The Netherlands (March 22, 2022—virtual)
“Precarity and Pregnant Bodies,” Religion and Disability Studies Unit and Women and Religion Unit. American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, San Antonio (Nov 21, 2021—virtual)
I presented on my book Abortion and the Christian Tradition: A Pro-choice Theological Ethic at the Women’s Caucus Panel on New Books on Gender and Religion. American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, San Antonio (Nov 20, 2021—virtual)
“Accountability and God’s Providence After Prenatal Testing,” Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture—Living Accountably Conference, Waco, Texas (Oct 29, 2021)
“Going on a Journey: How to Think about Abortion Christianly,” Keynote address at the Faith Journeys with Reproductive Justice Conference, Corrymeela Center, Ballycastle, Northern Ireland (Sept 4, 2021—virtual)
“Immigration, Human Rights, and Reproductive Justice: How to be Hospitable at the Border,” Society for the Study of Theology Conference, U.K. (April 15, 2021—virtual)
“Transformative Ritual Practices to Address Reproductive Loss,” Religious Transformation and Gender Contestations Conference in the Study of Religion, Utrecht University, Netherlands (March 11, 2021—virtual)
“Disability Rights and Selective Abortion: An Ethical Conflict?” Society of Christian Ethics Annual Conference (Jan 11, 2021—virtual)
“Immigration, Human Rights, and Reproductive Justice: How to be Hospitable at the Border in an Age of Trump,” American Academy of Religion Annual Conference (Dec 10, 2020—virtual)
“Motherhood—What Would It Mean to ‘Just Say No’?” invited plenary address at an interactive workshop on motherhood and religion, the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference (Nov 29, 2020—virtual)
“The Afterlife Understood from an Emergent Materialist Perspective,” Princeton Project in Philosophy of Religion Inaugural Conference, Princeton University (moved to zoom format, Oct 30, 2020)
“The Afterlife and Liminal Bodies,” Third International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life, University of Birmingham, England (moved to zoom format, July 22, 2020)
“Bodies in the Afterlife and Reproductive Bioethics in this Life,” Association of Practical Theology Biennial Conference, Houston, TX (moved to zoom format, May 2, 2020)
“Hospitality and the Fetus: A Prochoice Proposal on Good Samaritanism,” paper delivered at the Society of Christian Ethics Annual Conference, Louisville, KY (Jan 4, 2019)
“Is Fetal Life Grievable,” paper delivered at the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, Denver, CO (Nov 19, 2018)
“A Feminist Ethics of Abortion: Grievability and the Limits of Hospitality,” paper delivered at the Societas Ethica Conference on Feminist Ethics and the Question of Gender, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (August 24, 2018)
“Abortion and the Maternal Authority to End Fetal Life,” paper delivered at the Duquesne Women in Philosophy Conference, Pittsburgh, PA (March 24, 2017)
“Sex in Heaven? Eros, Abjection, and ‘Spiritual Bodies,’” paper delivered at the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada (Nov. 8, 2009)
“The Abortion Controversy,” panel presentation at the Constructive Theology Workgroup meeting, Nashville, TN (April 19, 2008).
“Foucault and Empire: A Poststructuralist Model for Doing Feminist Theology in a Postcolonial Age,” paper delivered at the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, Washington, DC (Nov. 18, 2006)
Academic and Professional Service and Memberships
Editor, Academy Series, American Academy of Religion, 2017-2021; reappointed 2022-2026:
https://www.aarweb.org/node/233
Director, Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies Institute, Oberlin College, 2012-2014
Associate Director, Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies Institute, Oberlin College, 2010-2011
Member, American Theological Society (2024-present)
Member, American Academy of Religion
Member, Society of Christian Ethics
Member, Societas Ethica
Participant in the Constructive Theology Workgroup, 2000-2017
Honors, Prizes, and Fellowships
John and Vera Diekhoff Fund, Oberlin College, 2023
Senior Research Scholar Award, Oberlin College, 2021
Coolidge Fellow in the CrossCurrentsResearch Colloquium, Auburn Seminary, New York City, July 2019
The Francis W. and Lydia L. Davis Chair in Religion, Oberlin College, 2014—2019
Research Status, Oberlin College, 2011-12
Wade and Jane B. White Fellowship, Oberlin College, 2005-06
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2000-02
Summa cum laude, Yale Divinity School
Julia A. Archibald High Scholarship Prize, Yale Divinity School
Religion and Arts Prize, Yale Divinity School
Day Fellowship, Yale Divinity School
Phi Beta Kappa, University of California, Berkeley