Flora x. Tang

Flora x. Tang is a Ph.D. candidate in theology and peace studies. She holds a master's degree in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Bachelor of Arts in political science and theology from the University of Notre Dame. Flora researches in the fields of decolonial theology, theologies of trauma healing, gender and sexuality studies, and questions of land justice in the age of where environmental violence and ethnonationalist violence perpetuate large-scale human displacement and suffering.

Flora’s dissertation, “Multidirectional Pasts, Diasporic Futures: An Eschatology from the Middle,” constructs a theological framework of decolonial futures of intercommunal peacebuilding, solidarity, and land-sharing in North America. Turning to both diasporic traumas of displacement from homeland and Indigenous histories of settler-colonial displacement, the dissertation considers collective and mutual trauma healing from different forms of displacement might look like. More specifically, it investigates—through weaving together decolonial theory, theologies, and contemporary case studies—what ethical responsibilities North American diasporic communities who live on colonized land hold toward the land and the people (especially Indigenous communities) who live in it. The dissertation builds upon existing works that analyze the violence of settler-colonialism and global displacement, and turns toward a constructive, future-oriented vision of decolonial peace and decolonial solidarity.

Engaging with Catholic-Christian theological subfields of eschatology and theological anthropology throughout, the dissertation offers a Christian theological reimagination of human communities’ relationship to land that counters existing theological narratives of land that have perpetuated violence and normalized human displacement. Flora argues that diasporic Christian communities of color can (and should) both embrace the liberative potential of their own diasporic existence in and migration through “middle spaces” and commit to solidarity with Indigenous populations and all others who refuse to be displaced from their ancestral land.

Flora’s other research similarly centers questions of how marginalized communities who have experienced violence have used religious rituals and symbolisms to retell narratives about their pasts and reimagine alternative futures. Her published writings also investigate how the Catholic Church has—and should—apologize for its complicity in colonial violence against North American Indigenous populations. Flora’s research projects all integrate her training in textual theological research, archival research, and ethnographic research methods.

Flora is the recipient of the Louisville Institute Dissertation Fellowship in 2024-2025, the Notebaert Premier Fellowship from 2020-2025, and the John and Judy Scully Fellowship from 2020-2026. Her academic research has been published in Theological Studies and Political Theology Network. Flora has previously worked in Catholic and ecumenical ministry, hospital chaplaincy, and has directed undergraduate service-learning programs. As a Catholic theologian and lay minister, Flora frequently leads workshops, lectures, and conference keynotes at Catholic churches and organizations around the country on the topics of LGBTQ inclusion and racial justice. Her public-facing writings can also be found in the National Catholic Reporter, America Magazine, and New Ways Ministry.