Kathleen M. Sands

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

As a feminist theologian, Kathleen Sands has risen rapidly to prominence as a scholar and professional leader in the field of religious studies. She is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She edited the volume God Forbid: Religion and Sex in American Public Life (Oxford University Press, 2000), a compilation of essays introducing scholarly perspectives on the family, gay rights, abortion, welfare, and prostitution from professionals in the field of the academic study of religion.

During her fellowship, Sands will lay the groundwork for a critical study of religion, paralleling the critical studies of gender, race, and sexuality. The study will be historical, ideological, and normative, investigating how, when, and for whose benefit “religion” (as we have come to know it) has been constructed.

Sands earned her MTS in theology from Harvard Divinity School and her PhD in systematic theology and ethics from the Boston College Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She received a research fellowship from the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life from the Harvard Divinity School in 1997.