Haruko Nawata Ward is a religious historian currently teaching church history at Columbia Theological Seminary. She is known primarily for her work on women religious leaders, history of Christianity in Asia, history of the Christian Reformation, encounter of cultures and religions and justice issues throughout the history of the church.
Ward received a B.F.A. from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music (1976), a M.A. from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of New York University (1980), a M.Div. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (1983), a Th.M. (1993) and a Ph.D. (2001) from Princeton Theological Seminary. During her time here she served as a Teaching Fellow and an occasional lecturer (1996-2001). She was ordained as a minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and began teaching at Columbia Theological Seminary as the Assistant Professor of Church History (2002-2008) and then Associate Professor of Church History (2008-2016). She is currently the Professor of Church History at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Ward, "a self-proclaimed feminist historian," is most widely known for her research on women throughout the history of the Christian church who have been largely ignored, especially in Asia. She states the "social historians have surveyed the activities of lay Kirishitan male leaders, but not paid attention to their female counterparts." In this research Ward seeks to re-emphasize the voice of women throughout history and to reinterpret Christian history through these voices. Additionally, her work also seeks to reveal how the "Christian mission had a significant cultural and social impact on Japan" throughout its history.
Women Religious Leaders of Japan’s Christian Century: 1549-1650. Series Women and Gender in the Early Modern World. Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2009.(Nominated for Gordon Book Prize from the Renaissance Society of America in 2009.)
“Images of the Incarnation in the Jesuit Japan Mission’s Kirishitanban Story of Virgin Martyr St. Catherine of Alexandria.” In Image and Incarnation: The Early Modern Doctrine of the Pictorial Image, ed. Walter S. Melion and Lee Palmer Wandel. Leiden; Boston, Brill Publishing, 2015.
“The Christian ‘Nuns’ of Early Modern Japan.” In Critical Readings in Christianity in Japan, ed. Mark R. Mullins, 4 vols. Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2015. Reprint. This essay was originally published in Portuguese Studies Review 13, no. 1-2 (2005).
“Naitō Julia and Women Catechists in the Jesuit Mission in Japan and the Philippines.” In Putting Names with Faces: Women’s Impact in Mission History, ed. Christine Lienemann-Perrin, Atola Longkumer, Afrie Songco Joye. Nashville: Abingdon, 2012.
“Women in the Eyes of a Jesuit between the East Indies, New Spain and Early Modern Europe.” In Western Visions of the Far East in a Transpacific Age (1522—1671), ed. Christina H. Lee. Series Transculturalisms 1400-1700. Farnham, England and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012.
“Martyrdom and Religious Violence.” In T & T Clark Companion to Reformation Theology, ed. David M. Whitford. London; New York: T & T Clark, 2012.
“Good News to Women? The Jesuits, their Pastoral Advice and Women’s Reception of Christianity in the Portuguese East Indies; Goa and Japan.” In Jesuits in India: History and Culture, ed. Délio de Mendonça. Goa, India: Xavier Centre of Historical Research, 2007.
“Jesuits, Too: Jesuits, Women Catechists and Jezebels in Christian-Century Japan.” In The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773, ed. John W. O’Malley et al. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.
"The Taste of a Nickel Coke: Stories of the Japanese American Women of the Internment." In Asian Americans and Christian Ministry, ed. Inn Sook Lee and Timothy D. Son. Seoul, Korea: Voice Publishing, 1999.
“Japan and Europe: The Christian Century, 1549–1600.” Oxford Bibliographies (Online) in Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Margaret King. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014
“Women and Kirishitanban Literature: Translation, Gender and Theology in Early Modern Japan.” In Early Modern Women: an Interdisciplinary Journal, v.7 (2012), 271-81.
“Kirishitan Women Martyrs Resist: A Movement in the 16th and 17th Centuries,” In The Commons, v. 3 (2011-2012): 31-4.
“Women Martyrs in Passion and Paradise,” In Journal of World Christianity 3, no. 1 (2010): 47-66. Issue on Women and Christianity in East Asia.
“Jesuit Encounters with Confucianism in Early Modern Japan,” In The Sixteenth Century Journal 40, no. 4 (winter 2009): 1045-67.
“The ‘Christian Nuns’ of Early Modern Japan,” In Portuguese Studies Review 13, no. 1-2 (2005): 411-48. Special Issue on Women in the Lusophone World in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Reprinted in Critical Readings in Christianity in Japan, ed. Mark R. Mullins,. Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2015.
“Women and the Confraternity of Misericórdia in the Early Modern Portuguese Seaborne Empire: Goa, Salvador da Bahia, Nagasaki.” In Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft 58, no. 4 (2002): 241-60.
Christian Theology of Martyrdom and Women Martyrs in Early Modern Japan (In Progress).
