Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock

Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock is co-author of the critically-acclaimed Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us (Beacon Press, 2001), is a Visiting Scholar. Author of Journeys By Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power. Co-authored Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States which won the 1996 Catholic Press Award for gender studies.

She has also edited several books and has written numerous scholarly essays on feminist theology and on Asian American women, including a lecture "On Mirrors, Motherroot, and Memory," which was awarded the Associated Religious Press proze for excellence in theological reflection.

Professor Brock is a noted public speaker and has lectured and preached around the world, including Japan, New Zealand, Australia, England, Canada and Germany. In 1993, she represented the National Council of Churches on a high-level delegation to support the process of peace in El Salvador and Guatemala. From 1996 to 1997 she was the first chair of the newly formed Common Global Ministries Board, a unique ecumenical venture of the Disciples of Christ and the United Church of Christ.

Since 1990, Brock has held an endowed chair in the humanities and was director of the humanities program at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn. She has also directed the women's studies program at Stephens College and has taught religion, philosophy, and women's studies at Scripps College, Valparaiso University, and Stephens College.

Brock is active internationally and nationally in a number of organizations. She chairs the board of directors of the Common Global Ministries Board of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. She serves on the board of trustees of the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley, Calif. She has also served on the board of the American Academy of Religion and chaired its committee on the status of women in the profession.

For interviews call (510) 839-4432