Mayra Rivera

Dr. Mayra Rivera is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies at Harvard University. She is the president of the American Academy of Religion. Dr. Rivera works at the intersections between continental philosophy of religion, literature, and theories of coloniality, race and gender—with particular attention to Caribbean postcolonial thought. Her research explores the relationship between discursive and material dimensions in shaping human embodiment and socio-material ecologies. She holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from University of Puerto Rico, and MTS (summa cum laude) and PhD degrees in Theological and Religious Studies from Drew University. Her most recent book, Poetics of the Flesh (Duke University Press, 2015), analyzes theological, philosophical, and political descriptions of “flesh” as metaphors for understanding how social discourses materialize in human bodies. Her book The Touch of Transcendence: A Postcolonial Theology of God (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) explores the relationship between models of divine otherness and ideas about interhuman difference. She is also co-editor, with Stephen Moore, of Planetary Loves: Spivak, Postcoloniality, and Theology (Fordham Press, 2010) and, with Catherine Keller and Michael Nausner, of Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire (Chalice Press, 2004). Dr. Rivera is currently working on a project that explores the relationships between coloniality and climate change through Caribbean thought.