Wanda Warren Berry

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Wanda Warren Berry

Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Emerita

Department/Office Information

Religion, Philosophy, Women's Studies

Contact

Degrees

Professional Experience

1977–present, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York
- 2003–present, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, emerita
- 2003–2004, Director of Women’s Studies
- 1996–2003, Professor of Philosophy and Religion [part-time]
- 1995–1997, Director of Affirmative Action
- 1988, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion [part-time]
- 1982, Assistant Director of Great Britain Study Group
- 1982–1988, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion [part-time]
- 1982–1985, Director of Affirmative Action
- 1977–1982, Instructor in Philosophy and Religion [part-time]
1976–1977 State University of New York College at Cortland, Lecturer in Philosophy
1967–1971 Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, Instructor in Philosophy and Religion [part-time]
1966-1967 Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, New York, Lecturer in Philosophy
1962-1966, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, Special Instructor in Philosophy and Religion

Honors, Fellowships, Grants

Phi Beta Kappa - Boston University, 1954
Danforth Graduate Fellowship for Women, 1972 (-1982)
Theta Chi Beta - Syracuse University [Religion Honorary], 1978
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, 1985: "Kierkegaard on Sexuality, Love, and Personal Identity," Atlanta, GA
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's 1986 summer institute on "Interpreting the Humanities," Geneva, NY
1993 Vice-President/President-elect, Søren Kierkegaard Society
1994 President, Søren Kierkegaard Society
Steering Committee, "Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture Group" of the American Academy of Religion, 1993-1999, Co-chair, 1997-1999
Sidney J. and Florence Felton French Teaching Award, 2003, Colgate University
Colgate AAUP Professor of the Year, 2018

Publications

"The Binocular Vision: The Philosophical and Religious Imagination in W. H. Auden's Critical Essays," Soundings, Summer 1976 (Vol. LIX, No. 2, 164-185).

"Eternal Feminine or New Woman?" (A Critical Review of Rosemary Radford Ruether's New Woman/New Earth and Sheila Collins' A Different Heaven and Earth), Cross Currents, Fall 1975 (Vol. XXV, No. 3, 309-313).

"Images of Sin and Salvation in Feminist Theology," Anglican Theological Review, January 1978 (Vol. LX, No. 1, 25-54).

"Kierkegaard's Existential Dialectic: The Temporal Becoming of the Self", The Journal of Religious Thought, Vol. 38 (Spring-Summer 1981), No. 1, 20-41.

"Nietzsche's Dialectical Aesthetic in The Birth of Tragedy", Studies in the Humanities, Vol. 9, No. 2 (September 1982), 40-46.

"Judaism Without Covenant: Breslauer on Buber," Jewish Social Studies, Winter 1983, (Vol. XLV, No. 1, 31-42).

"The Dialectics of Affirmative Action," The Christian Century, November 30, 1983 (Vol. 100, No. 36, 1106-1110). Reprinted in an abridged version as "Affirmative Action Is Just" in Social Justice: Opposing Viewpoints (St. Paul, MN: Greenhaven Press, 1984).

"Feminist Theology: The `Verbing' of Ultimate/Intimate Reality in Mary Daly," Ultimate Reality and Meaning: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Philosophy of Understanding, September 1988 (Vol. 11, No. 3, 212-232).

Reprinted in Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly, eds. Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Marilyn Frye (University Park, PAS: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 27-54.

"The Alchemy of Forgiveness", Plumbline: A Journal of Ministry in Higher Education, March 1991, (Vol. 19, Issue 1, 20-22).

"Finally Forgiveness: Kierkegaard as a `Springboard' for a Feminist Theology of Reform" in Foundations of Kierkegaard's Vision of Community: Religion, Ethics, and Politics in Kierkegaard, edited by George B. Connell and C. Stephen Evans (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992), 196-217.

"Kierkegaard and Feminism: Apologetic, Repetition, and Dialogue" Kierkegaard in Dialogue, eds. Merold Westphal and Martin Matustik (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana U. Press, 1995), 110-124.

"The Heterosexual Imagination and Aesthetic Existence in Kierkegaard's Either/Or, Part One", International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 3 (Macon, GA: Mercer U. Press, 1995), 201-228.

Re-printed in Feminist Interpretations of Kierkegaard, eds. Sylvia Walsh and Céline Léon, (University Park PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1997) 25-49.

"Judge William Judging Woman: Essentialism and Existentialism in Kierkegaard's Either/Or, Part Two", International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 4 (Macon, GA: Mercer U. Press, 1995), 33-57.

"The Silent Woman in Kierkegaard's Later Religious Writings," in Feminist Interpretations of Kierkegaard, eds. Sylvia Walsh and Céline Léon (University Park PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1997) 287-306.

Review of The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, eds. Alastair Hannay and Gordon Marino (Cambridge University Press, 1998) in The Archiv Fur Geschichte Der Philosophie, 81. Bd., S. 349-351 Walter de Gruster 1999.

“The Wreath of Eternity: Marriage as Paradigm of Covenant Love in Kierkegaard and Buber,” International Kierkegaard Commentary, volume 10 on Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, ed. Robert L Perkins (Macon, GA: Mercer U. Press, 2006) 289-320.

“Practicing Liberation: Feminist and Womanist Dialogues with Kierkegaard’s Practice in Christianity,” International Kierkegaard Commentary, volume 20, ed. Robert L Perkins (Macon, GA: Mercer U. Press, 2004) 303-341.

“To Be the Truth Is the Only True Explanation of What Truth Is: Gilleleie and the Twenty-First Century,” Why Kierkegaard Matters: A Festschrift in Honor of Robert L. Perkins, eds. Marc A Jolley & Edmon L. Rowell, Jr, (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010) 17-37.

Two items in Women and Religion, Philosophy and Feminism: the Colgate Heritage in Honor of Professors Marilyn Thie and Wanda Warren Berry, edited by Christopher Vecsey (Hamilton NY: Colgate University Press, 2019). Chapter 7: ”Reflections on Women and Religion”, pp. 79-94 and “Hoping With Our Feet: Forty Years of Women at Colgate and Beyond”, pp. 103-117.

Courses Taught

General Education:
- Philosophy and Religion; Philosophy, Religion, and Literature; Philosophy, Religion, and Drama
- Roots of Western Civilization
- Western Traditions: Continuity and Change
Introduction to Philosophy (Cazenovia College and SUNY Cortland)
Introduction to Religion
Introduction to Women's Studies
Contemporary Issues and Values
First-Year Seminars:
- Contemporary Issues and Values
- Meaning in Drama: Images of Human Existence in Classical and Contemporary Theater
Commitment vs. Cynicism: Modern Experiences of Faith and Despair
January Projects:
- Philosophical and Religious Issues in Tolstoy's War and Peace
- Hedonism and Its Critics
Religion and Literature: Drama and Human Existence
Religion and Psychology
Women and Religion
Women's Lives and the Religious Traditions
Feminist and Womanist Religious Thought
Women's Studies Seminar: Feminism and Authorship: Mary Daly and Rosemary Radford Ruether
Major Religious Authors Seminar: Rosemary Radford Ruether
Major Religious Authors Seminar: Søren Kierkegaard
Major Religious Authors Seminar: Religious Existentialists: Kierkegaard and Buber
Love/Power/Justice: Social Ethics and Religious Faith
(Spring 2002) Philosophy and Faith (seminar)
Many Independent Studies and Honors Projects on a variety of topics.

Committee Service to the University

in latter part of time at Colgate

Department of Philosophy and Religion
- Recording Secretary (several years)
- Honors and Awards Committee (several times)
- Chair, Search Committee (Jewish Studies) 1992-93
- Search Committee (Early Christian Literature), 1993-1994
- Chair, Search Committee (Philosophy of Religion- one year) 2001
Faculty Nominating Committee
Bolton House (Women's Studies House) Advisor/Faculty Fellow
Special Committee to Draft Sexual Harassment Policy
Residential Life Committee
Women's Studies Advisory Committee
Faculty Affairs Committee, 1991–1994
Academic Affairs Board, 1994–97, Secretary, 1995–97
Committee on Academic Advising 1996–97
Committee Service as Director of Affirmative Action, 1995–1997
- Faculty Committee on Affirmative Action Oversight
- Staff Committee on Affirmative Action Oversight
- ALANA (Minority) Affairs Committee
- Sexual Issues Group
Sexual Harassment Panel 1997–1999
Department of Philosophy and Religion Committee on Honors: Member and Chair numerous times
Steering Committee, Center for Ethics and World Societies, 2000–
Research Council, Spring 2002
Promotion and Tenure Committee, one year in late 1990s or early 2000s

Post-retirement Activities

Hospice Volunteer (approximately 2005–2011)
Literacy Tutor, Madison County Reads Ahead (about five years?)
Town of Hamilton Democratic Committee
- Chair, (2006(?)–2011/12)
- Secretary, 2012–?
Member Madison County Democratic Committee, circa 2007–2018
- Chair, Website and Publicity Committee 2016–2018
New Yorkers for Verified Voting, 2005–2011?
- Board of Directors: 2005–
- Executive Director 2008–?

Presentations of Continuing Interest

(Included here are presentations after 1995 that might be of continuing interest.)

Invited Address to the Annual Banquet of the Søren Kierkegaard Society (November 17, 1995), Philadelphia PA. "Sarah's Presence: Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling In A Different Voice."

Humanities Colloquium, Colgate University “Sarah’s Presence: Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling In a Different Voice,” Spring 1996.

Response to Arnold Come’s, “The Implications of Soren Kierkegaard’s View of Sexuality and Gender for an Appraisal of Homosexuality”, Third International Kierkegaard Conference, at the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, June 1997.

Women’s Studies Presentation, “Religiopolitics vs. The Culture of Disbelief: Silencing Women Again?” February 1999

Response to Sylvia Walsh’s paper, “Kierkegaard’s Erotic Hermeneutics as a Proto-feminist Alternative to Hegelian, Nietzschean and Derridean-Deconstructive Hermeneutics”, Fourth International Kierkegaard Conference, Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, June 2001.

“The Faiths of Others and the Works of Love: Toward a Kierkegaardian Religious Pluralism,” Kierkegaard, Religion and Culture Group, American Academy of Religion, November 2001, Denver, CO.

Presentations at the Women’s Studies Center, Colgate University:

2003? “What’s in a Name: Problematics of Women’s Names….
2003, “Hoping With Our Feet: 45 Years of Women at Colgate.”
2014 Panel presentation on the 20th Anniversary of the Women’s Studies, “How I Came to Direct Women’s Studies.”

Presentation to Colgate University symposium, April 11, 2018, “Women and Religion, Philosophy and Feminism: The Colgate Heritage in Honor of Professors Marilyn Thie and Wanda Warren Berry

Non-Academic Publications

Many articles at https://sites.google.com/site/nyvvarchive e.g.:

“History” and “Accomplishments” of New Yorkers for Verified Voting
“Eyes Wide Open: The Real Situation in New York,” (summer, 2008)
“Good News from Minnesota: New York Has Selected the Right Voting System”, Dec. 14, 2008
“The Charade of Voting Machine Demonstrations”

Jointly authored with Bo Lipari e.g.:

“Accessible Voting and Paper Ballot/Ballot Marker/Optical Scan Voting Systems” April 13,2006.
“Scanner and DRE Voting Machine Problems Are Not Equal”, Sept. 25 2006
“Public Comment on the Onondaga County Board of Elections Cost Comparison of 2007

Numerous Letters to Editor and op eds in local, regional, and national journals