My name is Valerie Elverton Dixon, and I study. I study: ethics, war and peace, ...
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Valerie Elverton Dixon, Ph.D.
Short Bio
Valerie Elverton Dixon, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics at Andover Newton Theological School, the oldest graduate theological school in the United States. She joined its faculty in 2002. Before that she worked as Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. At United she served as faculty advisor to the Social Crisis Ministry Group of the Doctor of Ministry Program and Mentor and Faculty Advisor to the Church and Society Group.
Since coming to Boston, Dr. Dixon has worked with the Boston Theological Institute, a consortium of Boston area theological schools, and she serves on the Executive Committee of the Interreligious Center on Public Life, an interfaith and ecumenical organization which started as a joint venture by Andover Newton and Hebrew College. She is a faculty member of the Ph.D. Seminar in Ethics at Boston College.
Dr. Dixon considers herself a Womanist scholar. She received her Ph.D. in 1998 under the direction of Womanist Scholar Dr. Katie G. Cannon, She has presented papers before the Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Group at the American Academy of Religion. She is also a member of the Society for the Study of Black Religion.
Her scholarly interests reach beyond ethics to include hermeneutics, postmodern and post colonial thought, philosophical pragmatism, peace theory, the ethics of public discourse and the civil rights movement. Her interest in justice and peace took her to a two-week summer school in Israel in the summer of 2005 to study nationalism and fundamentalism within the Israel/Palestinian context. In November of 2005, she spoke to a conference on violence against women in Cergy, France. She oft en speaks to church groups as well as to academic groups. She is currently working on two books: Ordinary People, Everyday Peace: Religion, Ethics and War and Jumping Double Dutch: Musings of a Womanist Mind at Play.
Dr. Dixon is a member of People’ s Baptist Church in Boston where she leads its regular 6 am Friday morning prayer meeting and bible study, and considers herself a committed Christian and a grateful daughter of the Black Church tradition.