Karma Chameleon- Part I

Karma
Written By Open Plaza

Dr. Jacqueline Hidalgo, Dr. Elías Ortega-Aponte, and Dr. Santiago Slabodksy discuss Jessica Krug, entanglements of Jewishness and Blackness with Latinidades in academia

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On Sept. 3, 2020, Jessica A. Krug, a tenured history professor, wrote that her adult life was founded on lies. Instead of growing up poor and Afro-Puerto Rican in the Bronx, as she had long claimed professionally, she grew up a white, Jewish child in suburban Kansas City. In this first episode of a two-part conversation, Dr. Santiago Slabodksy, Dr. Elías Ortega-Aponte, and Dr. Jacqueline Hidalgo contextualize this story by discussing the complex ways in which Jewish, Black, and Latinx identities intertwine and conflict, particularly in the academy. Krug's story and its representation in the media offer a window onto the obscured entanglements of Jewish and Afro-Puerto Rican histories in the Americas.

 
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Jacqueline Hidalgo

Dr. Jacqueline M. Hidalgo is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego. Formerly, she served as Professor of Latina/o/x Studies and of Religion; Associate Dean for Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and Director of the Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences at Williams College. She is a past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS) and Vice President of the New England/Eastern Canada Region of the Society of Biblical Literature. Dr. Hidalgo has written several essays that examine the intersections of gender, sexuality, ecology, Latine studies, and biblical studies. She is the author of Latina/o/x Studies and Biblical Studies in Brill Research Perspectives in Biblical Interpretation 3.4 (2020), as well as Revelation in Aztlán: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). With Efraín Agosto, she also co-edited the collection of essays Latinxs, the Bible, and Migration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Dr. Hidalgo holds an AB from Columbia University, an MA from Union Theological Seminary, and a PhD from Claremont Graduate University.

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Elías Ortega-Aponte

Dr. Elías Ortega-Aponte, a Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Leadership, is the President of Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, IL. Dr. Ortega is an interdisciplinary scholar who received his MDiv and PhD (Religion and Society, Magna Cum Laude) from Princeton Theological Seminary (2005, 2011). He also holds a B.A. in Communications Arts & Sciences and Philosophy and Religion from Calvin College. Prior to Meadville Lombard Theological School, Dr. Ortega served as Associate Professor of Social Theory and Religious Ethics at Drew University Theological School. He is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Commission on Institutional Change.

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Santiago Slabodsky

Dr. Santiago Slabodsky holds the Kaufman Chair in Jewish Studies at Hofstra University-New York. He is co-director of the trilingual journal Horizontes Decoloniales/ Decolonial Horizons and convener of the Liberation Theology and Decolonial Thought program at the Center for Global Dialogue. He served as convener of the PhD program in Religion, Ethics and Society at Claremont School of Theology and as associate director of the Center for Race, Culture and Social Justice at Hofstra University. Dr. Slabodsky holds a BA from Universidad de Buenos Aires, an MA from Duke University, and a PhD from University of Toronto. His book Decolonial Judaism: Triumphal Failures of Barbaric Thinking (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) received the 2017 Frantz Fanon Outstanding book award by the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

 
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