Queer theology attempts to think through what it means to be human, the nature of faith and the Church, and the nature of God in light of queerness. Moving beyond simple apologetics, as well as attempts to reconcile queerness with dominant norms for Christian life and belief, queer theology asks what Christianity and society might look like from a perspective that challenges the essentialisations, norms, and even models of inclusion and relationship that often go hand-in-hand with Christian belief.
Week 1
Marcella Althaus Reid and Normativity
Marcella Althaus Reid is something of a founding figure in queer theology. Her ‘indecent theology’ combines liberation theology’s concern for the lives of the poor with queer theory’s rejection of ‘normativity’ (a term that will be explained in the lecture). The result is a theology that attends to liberation as it manifests in ‘indecent’ acts of sexual resistance to Christian colonialism.
Week 2
Susannah Cornwall and Gregory of Nissa
Marcella Althaus Reid’s focus on transgression might lead you to think that queer theology has no interest in the canonical sources of the Christian tradition. However, you would be wrong! This session looks at Susannah Cornwall’s recovery of the Father of the Church, Gregory of Nissa, to reimagine our relationship to humansexuation, as well as to engage with the challenge of ‘homonormativity’ in queer communities.
Week 3
Linn Tonstad and Queer Reading
Susannah Cornwall’s recovery of Gregory of Nissa illustrates that sometimes queer theology can take a more positive look at traditional Christian sources. But are such recoveries truly queer? What does it mean for a queer reader to look back at the Christian tradition? And how might we do so in a way that lives up to the radical aspirations of queer theory itself? This week, we will see how Linn Tonstad engages these questions in her essay, ‘Everything Queer, Nothing Radical?’
Week 4
Feeling, Recovery, and Critique
The past two weeks raised questions about queer reading practices. This week, we’ll be looking at another text by Linn Tonstad, which explores another significant theme in queer theory for doing queer theology: affect, or feeling. In this paper, Tonstad resources the queer affect theorist, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, to interrogate the way that queer readers might approach traditional texts, exploring how different kinds of feelings towards the tradition can shape our reading practices.
A continuous theme running through this course has been the difficulties and ambivalences of queer theology as a negative theological project. Beginning with Marcella Althaus Reid’s theological appropriation of queer antinormativity, we have explored what it means to approach the Christian tradition as a queer reader who both troubles and is troubled by the sources that would inform us. In this final session, we will look at the theological significance of this task itself, drawing on Micah Cronin’s recent essay, ‘Queer Grace: an Essay on the Task of Queer Theology’.
Week 5
Negativity,Antinormativity and Queer Grace
A continuous theme running through this course has been the difficulties and ambivalences of queer theology as a negative theological project. Beginning with Marcella Althaus Reid’s theological appropriation of queer antinormativity, we have explored what it means to approach the Christian tradition as a queer reader who both troubles and is troubled by the sources that would inform us. In this final session, we will look at the theological significance of this task itself, drawing on Micah Cronin’s recent essay, ‘Queer Grace: an Essay on the Task of Queer Theology’.
Reading 1 - Althaus Reid
Reading 2 - Burrus
Week 1
Week 2
Dr Nicolete Burbach is the Social and Environmental Justice Lead at the London Jesuit Centre. Her PhD thesis looked at Pope Francis’ hermeneutics of uncertainty, and her research focuses on resourcing Pope Francis to think through issues of alienation and disagreement, with a particular focus on navigating the difficulties around trans inclusion in the Church. Previously, she has taught modules on postmodern theology and Catholic Social Teaching, both at Durham University.