Theresa Kelleher, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Theresa Kelleher is Associate Professor of Asian Studies and World Religions, She has been teaching full-time at Manhattanville since 1984. Her primary area of specialty is Chinese and Japanese Neo-Confucianism. Other areas of research interests include women's role in traditional China and Japan, instructional texts for women and children in China, the Silk Road, and Catholic Maryknoll Sisters working with Chinese Hakka women. She teaches a wide range of courses on Asia, including survey courses of the religions of China, Japan, and India, surveys of the histories of China and Japan, and a course on the Silk Road. Some upper level seminars include: Women in Chinese and Japanese Religions; Sages, Scholars, and Samurai: Neo-Confucianism in East Asia; and Religious and Cultural Imperialism: American Missionaries in China. She has served as Chair of Asian Studies for most of her tenure at Manhattanville.

Her most recent scholarly activity was organizing a panel, Confucian Sagehood and Self-Cultivation: Diverse Approaches in Late Imperial China, for a special joint meeting of the Association of Asian Studies (AAS) and the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS) in Celebration of 70 Years of Asian Studies, held in Honolulu, HI, March 31-April 3, 2011. Panelists included scholars from Japan, Taiwan, and the United States. As a member of the panel, Prof. Kelleher delivered a paper, "'It's a Rocky Road to Sagehood but Confucius and Zhu Xi are there to Guide Me': Wu Yubi's Use of a Diary to Navigate His Way."

Professor Kelleher earned her Ph.D. from the East Asian Languages and Cultures Department of Columbia University in 1982. Her M.A. was in Chinese Literature from the University of Hawaii, where she was also a Grantee at the East West Center. She is an alumna of Manhattanville, having graduated here in 1971 with a degree in Asian Studies.