Grace Yia-Hei Kao

Associate Professor of Ethics

Office: Craig 211
Phone: (909) 447-2530
Email: View Email Address
Extended Contact: Profile on academia.edu Online office hour scheduler

Dr. Kao teaches and researches on issues related to human rights, religion in the public sphere in the U.S., ecofeminism, and Asian American Christianity. She has also published chapters and articles on the relationship between religion and violence and the issue of interreligious cooperation and conflict.

An active member of professional associations, Kao serves on the steering committee of the "Law, Religion, and Culture" of the American Academy of Religion, and was recently elected to the Board of Directors for the Society of Christian Ethics (SCE). In years past, she also co-convened the Asian and Asian-American Working Group of the SCE.

At CST, Dr. Kao serves as a co-director of the Center for Sexuality, Gender and Religion (CSGR) and as the faculty advisor to the Asian Pacific Islander/American Association student group.

Education

Ph.D. - Harvard University
M.A. - Stanford University
B.A. - Stanford University

Recent Publications / Achievements

Grounding Human Rights in a Pluralist World (Georgetown Press, April 2011)

Grace Y. Kao, "Moving Forward by Agreeing to Disagree: A Response to 'Healing Ecology,'" Journal of Buddhist Ethics 17 (2010): 267-277.

Grace Y. Kao, "Mission Impossible: 'Nonsectarian' Prayer in the Military Chaplaincy," Political Theology 11.4 (2010): 611-640.

Grace Y. Kao, "The Universal Versus the Particular in Ecofeminist Ethics," Journal of Religious Ethics 38.4 (2010): 616-637.

Elizabeth Bucar, Grace Y. Kao, Irene Oh, "Sexing Comparative Ethics: Bringing Forth Feminist and Gendered Perspectives," Journal of Religious Ethics 38.4 (2010): 654-659.

Grace Y. Kao, Ramón Luzárraga, and Darryl Trimiew, with introductory remarks by Christine E. Gudorf, "Managing Diversity in Academe," Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 28.2 (2008): 115-147.

Grace Y. Kao, "For All Creation," in To Do Justice: A Guide for Progressive Christians, eds. Rebecca Toddie Peters & Elizabeth Hasty-Hinson, pp. 97-107. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.

Grace Y. Kao, "The Logic of Anti-Proselytization, Revisited," in Proselytization Revisited: Rights Talk, Free Markets, and Culture Wars, ed. Rosalind I. J. Hackett, pp. 77-110. London: Equinox, 2008.

Grace Y. Kao and Jerome Copulsky, "The Pledge of Allegiance and the Meanings and Limits of Civil Religion," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 75.1 (2007): 121-149.
*This article was ranked as one of the JAAR's top ten full-text downloads for 2008.

Grace Kao,"Consistency in Ecofeminist Ethics: Contextual Moral Vegetarianism and Abortion", International Journal of the Humanities 3.11 (2005/2006): 11-22.