Research Interests

Feminist spiritual activism, decolonial veganism, integral feminist pedagogy, women’s leadership

Biography

Alka Arora, Ph.D. has a doctorate in Women Studies from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Southern California. She joined the Women’s Spirituality program at CIIS in 2011 and helped develop the MA program in Women, Gender, Spirituality, and Social Justice.

Dr. Arora’s scholarship is focused on three interrelated areas of inquiry: feminist spiritual activism, vegan ecofeminism, and transformative pedagogy and leadership. She uses what she calls an integral feminist pedagogy in her teaching, inviting students to see social justice work as a form of sacred praxis. She also advocates for nonhuman animal lives in her teaching and research, and has been a committed vegan since 2013. Her courses at CIIS include “Spiritual Activism,” “Animal Ethics,” “Conscious Leadership Among Women,” and “Teaching to Transform: Liberatory Feminist Pedagogies.”

Dr. Arora bridges academia and community engagement through her collaboration with Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI), a non-profit organization that draws on the power of truth-telling and dialogue to transform gender relations. She facilitates public workshops with GERI and, in 2018, helped develop its first gender healing workshop specifically for people of color.

Education

2008 Ph.D. Women Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Courses

Spiritual Activism and Transformative Social Change Animal Ethics: Ecofeminist/Ecowomanist Perspectives Cultivating Conscious Leadership Among Women Teaching to Transform: Liberatory Feminist Education Liberation Dharma: Gender, Buddhism, and Social Justice Womanist Feminist Worldviews Critical Thinking and Liberatory Methods Sacred Lineages: Goddesses, Foremothers, and Activists