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- Convenors:
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Armanc Yildiz
(Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Brenda Bartelink (University of Groningen)
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- Chairs:
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Armanc Yildiz
(Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Brenda Bartelink (University of Groningen)
- Discussant:
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Omar Kasmani
(Free University)
Short Abstract:
Religion and sexuality are not separate spheres that need to be reconciled or happen to intersect. They are intimate parts of human experience that make up embodied lifeworlds. We are interested in understanding how religious and sexual practices are assembled and experienced in a productive way.
Long Abstract:
In public debates and academic reflections, religion and sexuality are often discussed as inimical constructions that need to be reconciled. One “needs” to choose one over the other, either leaving their religious practice and community or jeopardizing their sexual well-being. Against this backdrop, we are interested in how the religious, the spiritual, and the sexual constitute embodied experiences in everyday life. Religion, spirituality, and sexuality are not separate spheres that need to be reconciled or that happen to intersect; rather, they are intimate parts of human experience that make up embodied and situated lifeworlds. Religious morality can be and at times is restrictive of desires, emotions, and affects. If we were to think with the suggestion that all desire is socially constructed (Mahmood 2004), a narrow focus on restrictions distracts from a deeper understanding of how religious and sexual practices are assembled together (Beliso-De Jesús 2015) or experienced in a “productive” way.
Taking our inspiration from Audre Lorde’s conception of the Erotic (1978) as a spiritual resource, we are interested in papers that focus on questions including (but not limited to):
• How is religion sexualized, or is sexuality imbued with religion (Kasmani 2023; Gill 2018)?
• How are religion and sexuality co-constituted in bodily, spiritual, intimate, and erotic practices?
• How could insight into sexuality as a spiritual resource provide a critique of the liberal and conservative conceptions of sexuality?
We take both religion and sexuality as capacious terms that include all expressions of spirituality and intimacy.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2024, -Victoria Gail Bacud Amos (The University of Edinburgh)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how religion and desire are co-constituted by members of an ecumenical LGBTQIA+ church in the Philippines, applying openly ‘queer’ perspectives in their understandings and embodiments of traditional theology/scriptures and facilitating open conversation about LGBTQIA+ sexuality.
Paper long abstract:
There is arguably no form of sexuality considered more antithetical to religiosity than that which falls under the ‘queer’ umbrella, i.e. expressions and identities beyond cisgender and/or heterosexual norms. Yet, LGBTQIA+ people co-constituting these spheres undoubtedly exist and even thrive across various social and cultural contexts. This paper follows members of an LGBTQIA+-affirming ecumenical Christian church based in Metro Manila, Philippines, whose spiritual missions and practices not only acknowledge but celebrate queer desire. I offer an ethnographic exploration of how interlocutors render sexuality and religiosity mutually inclusive concepts by foregrounding the tenet that God loves them regardless of their identities as LGBTQIA+ people who express queer sexualities. Congregants emphasise the concept of ‘radical inclusivity’ in their understandings and embodiments of traditional theology and scriptures, embellishing upon and ‘queering’ religious canon while maintaining a core that is unmistakeably Christian. Open conversation about sex and sexuality amongst congregants is also normalised and facilitated, disrupting common idealisations of religious faith as elevated and separate from the messy physicality of being and acting human; acknowledging slippages between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ that are condemned or pointedly ignored by conventional theologies. The Philippines itself presents a particularly rich context to examine these negotiations within, as LGBTQIA+ Filipinos occupy a precarious space where their sexualities are branded deviant – even un-Filipino – by governing bodies and the public at large due to the colonially instituted roots of conservative Christianity while queer identity simultaneously holds historical and contemporary significance plainly evident in popular and indigenous culture.
Luay Ranko (University of Cologne)
Paper short abstract:
How abstract notions of ‘coming out’ for Muslim Syrian gays in Berlin are articulated in day-to-day activities; what does it mean to “be Muslim Syrian” and “be gay”’? How does the relocation to Berlin enable Syrian gays to develop queer Muslim homonormative moralities and masculinities?
Paper long abstract:
"Yes, I still consider myself Muslim, but I feel - as gay - I have my own form of religion." As an interview quote echoing gay Muslim sentiments, it radiates the complex journey of Muslim Syrian gays, who found themselves in Berlin, a city embracing intersectional identities. While Syrian war refugees faced challenges building a new life in a culturally, politically, religiously, and socially different environment in Berlin, Muslim gays – most of whom were ‘in the closet’ back in Syria – face even more challenges, but also opportunities. For them, like for me, arriving in Berlin meant entering a society where gay identities and lifestyles have an established public presence and are increasingly accepted. The research is centered around the experiences of Muslim Syrian gays to elicit their maneuvers for survival, the challenges they encounter, their visibility in society, and between desires and faith, the consequential changes in their moral perspectives. Mobility allowed the flourishing of Muslim Syrian lives; the personal journeys of Muslim Syrian gays who have relocated to more affordable gay-friendly spaces encapsulate a moral transformation. Within this journey, the concept of "Islam" assumes an integral role in fostering intersectional identities that incorporate both their Muslim and gay aspects. In this undiluted exploration, gay Muslim Syrians carve a space for themselves to pursue desired gender identities, breaking away from the chains of heteronormativity. However, they grapple with the weight of entrenched norms, recurring a cycle of ‘reproduced masculinity’ to reconcile personal desires with societal expectations.
Isabel Gómez (University of Barcelona - Institut Català d'Antropologia) Oriol Pascual Pérez (Universitat de Barcelona Institut català d'Antropologia)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will highlight the centrality of the appropriation of popular culture and religiosity in Garraf by the local LGTBQI+ community, and how, ultimately, they become central elements of identity and resistance in their personal sexo-generic processes.
Paper long abstract:
This paper presents the partial results of an ongoing research project on the appropriation and participation of popular rituals and mysticism of Catholic denomination by segments of the LGTBQI+ collective.
Far from the clichés, misunderstandings and prejudices that derive from them, this paper aims to highlight a perspective whereby certain expressions of popular religiosity can serve as an instrument for the generation and subsequent habitation of their own symbolic universes by social segments that are mistreated by institutions and by the social majorities. Underlining that these same spaces and practices of popular Catholic religiosity - parish associations, popular dances - are spaces and spheres of identity and sexo-generic resistance for the LGTBQI+ community.
The ethnography was carried out in the Garraf region, in the province of Barcelona. It is well known that one of its most important towns, Sitges, has become a meeting and reference point for the LGTBQI+ community, where, as in the neighbouring towns of Vilanova i la Geltrú and Sant Pere de Ribes, important religious events with a high participation of people belonging to the LGTBQI+ community take place.
Howie Rechavia-Taylor (LSE)
Paper short abstract:
This paper interrogates the (re)turn to orthodox/pious forms of Judaism on the part of many young (20-40 years old) queer Jews in the UK and the USA. It asks why these Jews, who had initially spurned Judaism, are returning to anti-Zionist or non-Zionist forms of Judaism in large numbers.
Paper long abstract:
Queer Jews are (re)turning to a Judaism that they had very often felt spurned by in droves throughout the anglosphere and beyond. This (re)turn often embraces the most pious forms of Jewish tradition, including Talmud learning and the embrace of traditional clothing such as TzitTzit. Defying the conventional association between religiosity and sexual repression, such Jews often refer to an increase in sexual freedom and breakdown of heteronormative structures in their lives the further that they re(turn) to Judaism. Moreover, in their religious-inspired opposition to Zionism, many Queer Jews are discovering freedom from the gender norms imposed by the "muscular" ideology of Zionist discourse.
Why are so many Queers (re)turning to a pious form of Judaism? How do they understand the relationship between race, sexuality, religion and nation as they do so? How does the opposition to Zionism fit within these (re)turns? How do they deal with the assumptions placed upon them of the "secular" world that an increase in religiosity must always already imply a loss of sexual freedom? This paper, which is the first attempt to think through a new project of mine, attempts to understand the promises and pitfalls of the massive increase in Queers (re)discovering pious forms of Judaism. Utilising both ethnographic vignettes and theoretical insights, I ask after what the emerging role of a Queer Anti-Zionist Judaism tells us about the relationship between religion and sexuality in the anglosphere today.