Haruka Umetsu Cho
Haruka Umetsu Cho (B.A., International Christian University, Tokyo; M.A., Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo; M.Div., Yale Divinity School; Ph.D., in Religion, Gender, and Culture at Harvard University) is interested in Christian theology, East Asian literature, feminist and queer theories, and decolonial studies.
Her first book, which is now under review, is a theological reading of modern Japanese fiction and poetry written between the late 1860s-1930s. The book focuses on themes of the Divine, eros, and flesh and analyzes how, in the context of colonialism and modernism, those themes were transmitted, adapted, and reinterpreted by Japanese writers. Her second book extends her study of cross-cultural theological thought to Japanese literary and visual art composed from 1945 onward. By examining Japanese adaptations of avant-garde art, this project explores how post-WWII Japanese artists reframed their predecessors’ interest in Christian images in more radical terms, particularly regarding queer desire, violence, and marginalized race or ethnicity.
“Forbidden Intimacy and Vicarious Incarnation: Reading Shūsaku Endō, Kiku’s Prayer” (accepted by The Journal of Religion).
“East Asian Theology,” co-authored with Chloë Starr, in Handbook of Modern Theology (T&T Clark, forthcoming).
“Engaging the World as ‘Onna’ and Religious Minority: Second Wave Feminism and Christian Social Activism in Japan during the 1970s,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 38, no. 1 (2022): 185-203.
“Erotic Desire as a Woman’s Way of Knowing the Divine: Reading Arishima Taeko, A Certain Woman,” Body and Religion 4, no. 1 (2021): 82-104.
“Kazō Kitamori’s Theology of the Pain of God: A Reading from Perspectives of Japanese Colonial Discourse and Gender Violence,” Asia Journal of Theology 34, no. 4 (2020): 21-42.