Mayra Rivera is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies at Harvard University. Rivera works at the intersections between philosophy of religion, literature, and theories of coloniality, race, and gender—with particular attention to Caribbean thought. Her most recent book, Poetics of the Flesh (2015), analyzes theological, philosophical, and political descriptions of “flesh” as metaphors for understanding how social discourses materialize in human bodies. She is also author of The Touch of Transcendence (2007), Planetary Loves: Spivak, Postcoloniality, and Theology (2010), and Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire (2004). Rivera is currently working on a project that explores narratives of catastrophe in Caribbean thought.