Reverend Joseph Cheah: Lived Experience as the Core of Spiritual Practice

Reverend Joseph Cheah sits down with Dana to discuss his research and writings which push back against dominant understandings of Asian religions that were propagated by Western frameworks. He brings his combination of familial and cultural Buddhist roots with his Catholic faith and livelihood to also offer the idea that anti-hate activism by Asian organizers is a deep kind of spiritual social practice in action. 

GUEST

REVEREND JOSEPH CHEAH OSM, Ph.D. is Professor of Religious Studies and Theology, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies. 

Fr. Joe has made robust contributions in the fields of Asian American religions and theology, Buddhist Studies, World Christianity, race and religion. He is the author of Race and Religion in American Buddhism (OUP, 2011) which is the first monograph to take race seriously as a category of analysis in American Buddhist scholarship (Brooke Schedneck) and “stands to transform the discourse on American Buddhism and Asian American religions in significant and much needed ways” (Sharon Suh). His recent book Anti-Asian Racism (Orbis, 2023) has been reviewed as “an exceptional book … on the genealogy and variants of anti-Asian racism in the U.S.” (Thomas Hampton) and “a must-read for all Americans” (Peter Phan). He is a co-editor on the Palgrave Macmillan series, “Asian Christianity in Diaspora” with Grace Ji-Sun Kim, with whom he co-authored a book on Theological Reflections on “Gangnam Style.” In recognition of his record of exceptional scholarship, the University in 2018 awarded him with the Sister Mary Ellen Murphy Faculty Scholarship Award.

He has been an invited speaker on anti-Asian racism, Catholic Social Teaching, and other topics to audiences at diverse educational levels across the country. He was part of Asian American Christian Collaborative delegates invited to a White House meeting to address central issues faced by Asian American communities.

HOST

REVEREND DANA TAKAGI (she/her) is a retired professor of Sociology and zen priest, practicing zen since 1998. She spent 33 years teaching sociology and Asian American history at UC Santa Cruz, and she is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies.