Cara Rock-Singer has joined the UW Religious Studies Program as a tenure-track faculty member. She received an AB in molecular biology from Princeton University, MSt in theology with a focus on religion and science from Oxford University and a PhD in religion from Columbia University. She recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University, where she was jointly appointed in the Jewish Studies Program and the Science and Technology Studies Department.
This year, she will be teaching RS/GWS 305: Women, Gender and Religion in fall and RS/HIS SCI/MED HIS 331: Science, Medicine and Religion insSpring. Among the things she is most looking forward to this year are teaching these two courses and working with UW students for the first time.
A scholar of North American religions, Rock-Singer’s research and teaching center on the relationships among gender, Judaism and science in the contemporary United States. Her book manuscript, Gestating Judaism: The Corpuses and Corporalities of American Jewish Feminisms, examines how American Jewish women in the United States and Israel deploy gendered technologies and knowledge to challenge normative structures within Jewish social and religious life.
How Rock-Singershe come to study religion? Like many current students, alumni and other faculty, she is a “liberal arts success story.” She took a religion class to fulfill a college requirement and “was hooked.” She followed up that course with another on religion, gender and sexuality and, as she says, “That was it!” She fell in love with studying religion and being able to engage with everyday lives and how people derive meaning within and outside of religious traditions.
A mentor encouraged Rock-Singer to connect her science background to religious studies and “it opened up space to think about knowledge production and authority, and to think critically about pervasive and powerful forces in American life.”
As for her focus on Judaism, Rock-Singer explains that “part of my project is thinking about Judaism’s relationship to American religion” in ways that can expand both our understanding of Judaism and our understanding of religion broadly construed. This focus, especially how it manifests in and through female bodies, offers insight into “the complexity of biology and peoplehood in identity and community formation.”
As for coming to UW, Rock-Singer is especially excited about the many intersections among programs that are possible with “Jewish Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, Science and Technology Studies … these are just the tip of the iceberg.”
Rock-Singer moved to Madison this summer with her spouse, history professor Aaron Rock-Singer and their children Liora, who is five, and Eli, who is almost one.