People

2007-08 Research Associates and Visiting Faculty

Monica Maher

Colorado Scholar and Visiting Lecturer on Women's Studies and Ethics

email: mmaher@hds.harvard.edu  phone: 617.384.8377

Monica Maher's scholarly interests lie in the intersection of women's rights and religion, particularly women's interfaith dialogue and action in response to gender-based violence. In 2006-07she served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, where she taught courses in feminist religious social thought, sexual ethics, and interfaith studies, including Buddhist-Christian dialogue.

A Fulbright New Century Scholar in 2004-05, Monica Maher participated in collaborative international research on the theme "Toward Equality: The Global Empowerment of Women." Her individual project, "Religion as a Source of Women's Empowerment,"” focused on Latin American women'’s theological creativity in response to gender violence. During the year, she traveled to Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Korea and India. Her working group on gender violence created guidelines for an International Truth Commission on Violence Against Women.

Over the past two decades, Dr. Maher has worked with women's groups in Latin America and the Caribbean as a consultant, program coordinator, and workshop facilitator, including for the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), Women's World Banking, the Health and Development Policy Project, Concern America and Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir.

Dr. Maher received her BA (magna cum laude) from Williams College (1982); MA in international development from the American University, Washington, D.C. (1988); MDiv from Harvard Divinity School (1998); and PhD from Union Theological Seminary (2004). At Harvard, she was recipient of an Elizabeth Monrad scholarship and a Summer Travel Research Grant by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. In 2004, Union awarded her the Daniel Day Williams Fellowship for excellence in theological scholarship; her dissertation was entitled "Tejidas con Nuestra Propia Piel/Woven With Our Own Skin: A Catholic Feminist Ethics of Sexuality."

Forthcoming publications include: "Daring to Dream: Faith and Feminicide in Latin America," in Weep Not for your Children: Essays on Religion and Violence, edited by Lisa Isherwood and Rosemary Radford Ruether (Equinox Press, 2007); and "The Truth Will Set Us Free: Religion, Violence and Women's Empowerment in Latin America," in Global Empowerment of Women: Responses to Globalization, Politicized Religions and Gender Violence, edited by Carolyn Elliott (Routlege Press, 2007).

While at HDS, Dr. Maher will be working on her book manuscript, "Our Search for Songs: Faith and Feminicide in Latin America," and teaching the course "Gender, Sexuality, and Human Rights."

Photograph courtesy Monica Maher.