Kristine Wright is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Religion at Princeton University (Religion in America subfield.)  She is also pursuing a graduate certificate from the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies.  Her research focuses on the intersection of religion, gender and medicine with particular emphasis on women and constructions of religious authority.

Kris’s dissertation, Bodies of Light and Knowledge: Mormon Women, Religious Authority and Theologies of Health explores how authoritative knowledge about health and the body were created, mobilized and contested in the United States during the 19^th and early 20^th century. Bodies of Light and Knowledge suggests that the development of Mormon theologies and rituals of embodiment and health are instructive for understanding the religious history of American women as well as the categories of gender, race, religion and medicine more broadly.

Kris’s teaching and research interests include U.S. women’s history, religious histories of health and disease, new religious movements, material religion and print culture.

At Princeton, she has coordinated the Religion Department’s “What Is…?” Pedagogical Colloquium. During the 2019-20 academic year, she was awarded the Religion and Public Life Fellowship from Princeton’s Center for the Study of Religion and was an assistant in instruction for the department’s “Cult Controversies” course. She has published articles in The Journal of Mormon History and at the online news journal Religion & Politics.