People

Maytha Alhassen is a journalist, poet and scholar. Her work bridges the worlds of social justice, academic research, media engagement and artistic expression. She recently defended and submitted her doctoral dissertation in American Studies and Ethnicity from University of Southern California (USC) and currently is a Senior Fellow at Pop Culture Collaborative. Research Interests: cultural histories, social movements and friendships, race and ethnicity, social justice and the arts, travel, global flows, critical migration studies, women + gender, sacred femininities, media studies, Afro-Arab “solidarity politics,” Malcolm X, global south, food justice, and indigenous spiritual healing technologies and practices.

For almost 30 years, Dr. Toni Bond has worked tirelessly to make the voices of Black women heard around issues of reproductive and sexual health, rights, and justice. In 1994, Dr. Bond was one of the twelve Black women who gave birth to the concept of “Reproductive Justice,” creating a paradigm shift in how women of color would add their collective voices to the fight for reproductive autonomy and freedom. Reproductive justice was created to shed light on the combined forms of oppression that contribute to women of color’s reproductive oppression and as a systematic way to develop practical strategies of resistance and liberation.

In 1994, Dr. Bond was the first black woman appointed to serve as the executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund, one of the oldest abortion funds in the Midwest. In 1996, she co-founded and led the first Black women’s reproductive justice organization in the country, Black Women for Reproductive Justice. Dr. Bond is a recognized leader and expert on working at the intersections of religion and reproductive justice. A womanist theo-ethicist, her areas of specialization include gender and sexuality, reproductive health, rights, and justice, Black feminist theory and methodology, womanist theory and methodology, and womanist and Christian ethics. Her scholarly foci are reproductive justice and women of color, religion, faith, and reproductive justice, and womanist theo-ethics and reproductive justice.

Keynotes and lectures Dr. Bond has given include the American Public Health Association, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, the American Academy of Religion, the Intercollegiate Feminist Center for Teaching, Research and Engagement at Scripps College, the National Abortion Federation, the International Cross-Cultural Black Women’s Studies Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa, the 10th International Women and Health Meeting in New Delhi, India, the National Convocation—Christian Church Disciples of Christ, and a NGO-sponsored session at the 2001 Third UN World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and other Forms of Intolerance in Durban, South Africa.  In December, 2008, Dr. Bond was part of a group of reproductive health, rights, and justice advocates invited to make recommendations to President Barack Obama’s transition team about advancing reproductive health and rights. Her testimony garnered her additional invitations from the Obama administration to participate in several White House meetings to share her insights about reducing unintended pregnancies.

Dr. Bond is the recipient of numerous awards, including, the Jane Bagley Lehman Fellowship from the Tides Foundation, the Pauli Murray Award from the Chicago Now Education Fund, the Bella Abzug Woman of Achievement Award from the Chicago Chapter of the National Organization of Women, and the Women in History Award from the Woman’s Board of the Chicago Urban League. In 2017, she received the Sharon Watson Fluker Doctoral Fellowship from the Forum for Theological Exploration. In support of her dissertation research, in 2019, Dr. Bond was named the inaugural Fellow for the Fellowship for Reproductive Justice Research, a research fellowship sponsored by Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), a collaborative research group at the University of California, San Francisco Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. She was named the inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at Interfaith Voices for Reproductive Justice. Dr. Bond also received the Emerging Scholars Award from the Society for Family Planning in support of her dissertation research. She was one of the 2019 fellows in the CrossCurrents Summer Research Colloquium at Auburn Seminary.

Dr. Bond currently serves as board chair of the board of directors for Interfaith Voices for Reproductive Justice. She is also on the board of the Civil Liberties & Public Policy Program. She has served on the boards and advisory committees of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, the Trust Black Women Partnership, the National Network of Abortion Funds, and the Guttmacher Institute.

Dr. Bond received her B.A. from DePaul University with a focus in Women & Gender Studies. She completed her M.A. in Theology/Ethics at Claremont School of Theology (CST), receiving their University Scholars Award, a fully funded scholarship. She completed her Ph.D. in Religion, Ethics, and Society at CST.

Midori E. Hartman is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Albright College. She holds a PhD in Historical Studies with an emphasis on Christianity in Late Antiquity from Drew University. Her primary research interests are Augustine of Hippo, ancient slavery, and rhetoric as it intersects with issues of gender, ethnicity, and animality.

Alison L. Joseph is Senior Editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Civilization and Culture. Her research explores the processes by which the Hebrew Bible was produced, bringing together historiographical, literary, and gender criticism as it illuminates the author/redactor’s role in interpreting and rewriting earlier texts. Her current project, Damning Dinah: The Priestly Battle against Intermarriage, looks at intermarriage and women’s sexuality in the Hebrew Bible and explores how late authorial voices reflect a growing concern with foreign infiltration. Her first book, Portrait of the Kings: The Davidic Prototype in Deuteronomistic Poetics (Fortress, 2015), received the 2016 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. She is co-editor of Reading Other Peoples’ Texts: Social Identity and the Reception of Authoritative Traditions (Bloomsbury, 2020). She earned her PhD in Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Research Interests: Sexuality and gender in the Hebrew Bible, the Bible in pop culture, biblical historiography, feminist historiography.

Read Alison’s FSR Blog posts.

Angela N. Parker is the Assistant Professor of New Testament and Greek at McAfee. She received her B.A. in Religion & Philosophy from Shaw University (2008), her M.T.S. from Duke Divinity School (2008-2010) and her Ph.D. in Bible, Culture, & Hermeneutics (New Testament focus) from Chicago Theological Seminary (2015). Before this position, Dr. Parker was Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology for 4 years. While at The Seattle School, Dr. Parker received the Journal for Feminist Studies in Religion’s ESF New Scholar Award (2^nd Place) for her article “One Womanist’s View of Racial Reconciliation in Galatians.” She teaches courses in New Testament, Greek Exegesis, the Gospel of Mark, the Corinthians Correspondence, and the Gospel of John. She is also working on a new course that engages womanist and feminist hermeneutics unto preaching.

In 2021, Dr. Parker’s book entitled If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority is slated for release by Eerdmans Publishing. In this work, Dr. Parker argues that the doctrines of inerrancy and infallibility serve as tools of White supremacist authoritarianism. In another forthcoming book entitled Bodies, Violence, & Emotions: A Womanist Study of the Gospel of Mark, Dr. Parker thinks through the issue of imperial violence and its effects on the bodies of Jesus, John the Baptizer, and the woman suffering in a flow of blood in Mark 5. This study allows Dr. Parker to engage real lived experiences of violence and emotions in contemporary society. Dr. Parker is also the author of articles entitled “Reading Mary Magdalene with Stacey Abrams,” “Feminized-Minoritized Paul? A Womanist Reading of Paul’s Body in 1 Corinthians,” and “And the Word Became. . . Gossip? Unhinging the Samaritan Woman in the Age of #MeToo.”

In addition to her teaching and research, Dr. Parker serves as co-chair for the Paul & Politics Seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature and is a committee member of SBL’s Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible as well as a committee member of the American Academy of Religion’s Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities Committee.

Tamisha A. Tyler, MDiv, is the former Director of ARC: Art Religion and Culture and PhD candidate in theology and culture. Her work establishes methodologies in the field of Theopoetics, situated in the work of Octavia Butler. Tamisha is also cofounder of Kinship Commons, a company that resources worship cultivators of color. A dynamic speaker and facilitator, she teaches in the areas of culture, community, and art, and works with several organizations including Level Ground, Feminism and Religion, and currently serves as a faculty and board member of Grunewald Guild. We’re not working, she enjoys good food and good friends, karaoke, and travel.

Karri Alldredge is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. She earned her PhD in New Testament and Early Christianity from Drew University. Her research interests include queer hermeneutics, postcolonial trauma theory, womanist-feminist dialogical interpretation, and critical race theory. Whipple is committed to working on issues of gender-based violence, LGBTQ+ rights, and media rights with faith communities, nonprofits, and United Nations’ NGOs.