Speaker: Fr. Joseph Cheah, OSM, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, University of Saint Joseph
Topic: Anti-Asian Racism and Catholic Social Teaching
Location: Faculty Dining Room, Mary Dooley College Center, Elms College
This lecture aims to address a critical gap in the Catholic Church’s pastoral discourse on anti-Asian racism, as evidenced in documents like Open Wide Our Hearts and Encountering Christ in Harmony. These texts, while significant, lack a robust engagement with the racialized experiences of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). By focusing on the intersection of anti-Asian hate and Catholic Social Teaching (CST), the lecture seeks to deepen the Church’s understanding of racial justice through the lens of AAPI experiences.
Speaker Biography
Joseph Cheah, OSM, Ph.D. is Professor of Religious Studies and Theology, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies. In the classroom, he sees himself as a co-learner, someone who collaborates with students for insight and understanding. Telling pertinent stories and sharing appropriate experiences from his unique social location as Asian American and positionality as religious priest have helped him to reclaim teaching and learning as an essential part of faculty-student dialogue.
Fr. Joe has made robust contributions in the fields of Asian American religions and theology, Buddhist Studies, World Christianity, race and religion. He is the author of Race and Religion in American Buddhism (OUP, 2011) which is the first monograph to take race seriously as a category of analysis in American Buddhist scholarship (Brooke Schedneck) and “stands to transform the discourse on American Buddhism and Asian American religions in significant and much needed ways” (Sharon Suh). His recent book Anti-Asian Racism (Orbis, 2023) has been reviewed as “an exceptional book … on the genealogy and variants of anti-Asian racism in the U.S.” (Thomas Hampton) and “a must-read for all Americans” (Peter Phan). He is a co-editor on the Palgrave Macmillan series, “Asian Christianity in Diaspora” with Grace Ji-Sun Kim, with whom he co-authored a book on Theological Reflections on “Gangnam Style.” In recognition of his record of exceptional scholarship, the University in 2018 awarded him with the Sister Mary Ellen Murphy Faculty Scholarship Award.
He has been an invited speaker on anti-Asian racism, Catholic Social Teaching, and other topics to audiences at diverse educational levels across the country. He was part of Asian American Christian Collaborative delegates invited to a White House meeting to address central issues faced by Asian American communities.