Jerusha T. Rhodes is Associate Professor of Islam & Interreligious Engagement at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Her research focuses on interreligious engagement and religious pluralism, comparative theology, and Muslima theology. She earned a Ph.D. in Theological and Religious Studies with a focus on Religious Pluralism at Georgetown University in 2011. She also received an M.A. in Islamic Sciences at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, and an M.A. in Theological and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. Before joining the Union faculty in July of 2012, she was Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University. Her first book, Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism (Oxford University Press, March 2014), explores the Qur’anic discourse on religious ‘otherness’. Her second book, Divine Words, Female Voices: Muslima Explorations in Comparative Feminist Theology (Oxford University Press, 2018), uses the approach of comparative feminist theology to engage diverse Muslim and Christian feminist, womanist, and mujerista voices. Dr. Rhodes is currently working on two book projects. The first is a book on interreligious engagement, which introduces central questions, concerns, and strategies for effective and ethical engagement. The project underscores the necessity of an interreligious consciousness, especially for religious and ethical leaders, and explores the intersections among religious diversity, racism, sexism, and religious supremacy. The second project is focused on interreligious and multireligious engagement in Ghana, West Africa. It explores various historical and contemporary examples of engagement with the goal of uncovering recurring norms and values that are relevant to other multireligious contexts.
