Lisa Kemmerer, Ph.D.
Feature Story
Interviewed by Samantha Joo
On the first night at Harvard Divinity School, I was anxious about my potential roommate. It was the first time I had been away from home and I didn’t know what to expect in my roommate except that she would probably be a white American. Why? Because that was the world I encountered in my educational experience, especially for my bachelor’s degree at the University of Denver. As a Korean person, I was keenly aware of my difference. I knew that the smells of my home bothered white America and my views of family and cultural mores were considered peculiar at best. So in my apprehension, I found myself reading the Bible on my bed with my mother, who had accompanied me to Cambridge (I know, I was quite the pious, proper woman in my foregone youth). Then Lisa Kemmerer, who looked like a country bumpkin in her flannel shirt and jeans, walked into the room. She was my new roommate. My mother and I looked at each other because we knew at that moment that I had myself a great roommate. There was a softness in her face and timidity in her movements which bespoke a kindness and thoughtfulness that words could never capture. What I did not know then is that she would become one of my two closest friends three decades later.
While she usually looked like she had walked away from the hills of the high country in the West, she was actually the most worldly, well-traveled person I know. Just the year before applying to HDS, she had spent a year traversing Asia on an academic grant to learn about the different religions and cultures. In other words, she was not vacationing in Asia but studying it in all its diversity and richness. Consequently, she had come to truly respect and appreciate the cultural differences and the wisdom that comes from such knowledge. She was not squeamish about the pungent smell of fermented kimchee or the funky, ripened blue cheese aroma of doenjang. Nor was she befuddled with my need to call my parents every night before the era of the mobile phone or emails. She would sit next to me and taste all the different dishes, amazed at the unique flavors, and respect, not poke fun at, the relationship I had with my family.
And because she was older, maturer, and wiser, she was tolerant of my backward ways, immaturity, lack of sophistication, and dare I say, naïveté. That I was. She is probably the first person outside of my family who had believed in me, supported my decisions, and loved me unconditionally. Only my father had done more than Lisa to foster my growth into adulthood. Yes, I am an adult and if you do not happen to agree, then I guess it is Lisa’s fault that I am emotionally stunted. And as for my physical under-development, you would have to hold some deity or my mother responsible. As you should know by now, some or maybe most days, god and my mother are the same to me.
Even though over the years, we mostly corresponded via email (a new era for us) and an occasional phone call, we share everything, well, almost everything. It took me over a year to confess my latest crush which she laughed off because she knows all too well that I am a hopeless case. I am no more able to find a meaningful relationship outside of my deep, intimate friendships than she is able to trust a man. Let me say that I have a better chance which is really not saying much. As for Lisa, being somewhat a repressed person, she would usually share after she had ignored it long enough and then have thought about the situation backward and forward and sideways. I would blurt it out loud for her because patience has never been a virtue of mine. Well, I can’t be expected to wait until she is able to share; I’d be 1000 years old by then.
What is it about Lisa that makes people trust her implicitly? She embodies a gentleness that is her aura and surrounds everything that she does, the way she smiles at young people, helps the elderly pull their carts up the stairs, tries to protect every creature, whether it be a mosquito, the mice in our dorm room, or the stray dog that ends up on her doorstep. She does not need to pretend that she cares; she breathes and lives her kindness. She is probably one of the most ethical person of integrity that I have encountered and I’ve been around plenty of religious and social activist leaders. Her work in animal rights, her veganism, her publications, her speaking engagements, her interactions, her teachings, her life - all of it can be summed up in one word, compassion, which is the foundation of her being. No one even comes close except again my father.
This interview was like all our conversations. We bantered about nothing important and everything meaningful at the same time. Initially, I really didn’t want to interview her because if you ever discuss anything about life with a student of philosophy, it’s never a simple answer but a circuitous unraveling of the question. To be honest, we didn’t even get to all the questions because I started bickering over her deconstruction of the very first question. Oh, I hate philosophy and philosophers.
Even though she was not too delighted about the questions, I highly encouraged (well, demanded) her to respond to them succinctly. And with a smile and a laugh, she complied.
Interview
Sam: What is the single most impact you think you have had on people?
Lisa: Teaching. Every semester I had about 100 students who would never have heard about racism, anti-capitalism, animal rights and the vegan diet, or feminism if I had not been teaching there. There was time to discuss, readings to support, and everything one could dream of for inserting new possibilities—or at least serious questions about the status quo—into the minds of those otherwise disinterested.
Sam: You work in an area of social justice which has very little support from the public - how/why do you keep doing your work in animal rights activism?
Lisa: The worst outcome for anyone is that their life be pointless. I am fortunate to have something that matters to me. There is nothing better to do with a life than something meaningful, and that which isn't meaningful always stems from beyond the individual.
Sam: What do you do to keep stress/despair from taking over your life?
Lisa: Nature. Animals. I walk the dogs daily—or they walk me. I need the time out more than they do, I suspect.
Sam: Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
Lisa: I suspect I will be doing pretty much the same thing in 5 years. Why should I anticipate anything different when I am doing what I want to do with my life?
Sam: When we reach a certain point in our lives, we start to reflect on what we leave behind. What would you ideally like to leave behind?
Lisa: I would like to leave the world a little better than I found—better because I lived. If that means a little more happiness, a little more peace, or a little less suffering, it’s all good.
About
Internationally known for her work, professor emeritus Dr. Lisa Kemmerer earned a BA in International Studies from Reed College, a Master of Theological Studies in Comparative Religions from Harvard, and a PhD in philosophy from Glasgow University in Scotland. Kemmerer taught for 20 years at the university level, publishing more than 100 articles/anthology chapters and 10 books, including Animals and World Religions, Sister Species: Women, Animals, and Social Justice, and Eating Earth: Environmental Ethics and Dietary Choice. She retired to continue her work on behalf of anymals, the environment, and disempowered human beings through her educational non-profit, Tapestry. For more information, please visit lisakemmerer.com.