Gender and Sexuality Studies

Description

This field considers religion, gender and culture in their multiple senses, and in their relation to the study of the status and history of women, sexuality, and other markers of diversity. Courses and doctoral work on these topics, whether normative, descriptive, or practical, can be addressed from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives. Faculty members in this field have particular strengths in feminist theory, queer theory, theology, history, literature, ethics, biblical studies, and post-colonial studies. These topics and approaches may be pursued in any religious tradition that has sufficient support on the faculty, and can also be studied in a comparative mode.

Recent and current dissertation topics include:

  • “The Problem of the Land is the Problem of the Woman”: A Genealogy of Ecofeminism at Grailville
  • Abortion and the Politics of God: Patient Narratives and Public Rhetoric in the American Abortion Debate
  • Transfiguring Sexual Difference in Maximus Confessor
  • Divinity, Difference, and Democracy: A Critical Materialist Reading of Luce Irigaray’s Politics of Incarnation
  • Constructing “Asian Women”: A Critical Examination of Cultural-Theological Rhetoric
  • Neighbors and Other Strangers: A Critical Feminist Liberation Theology of the Neighbor and Welfare Reform
  • The Rhetoric of Sexual Purity in Contemporary Conservative U.S. Christianity
  • Theo-ethical Rhetoric of Home: Transforming Gendered Place and Practice

Affiliated Faculty

brekus2018

Catherine Brekus

Chair, Committee on the Study of Religion
Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America
Leila Ahmed

Leila Ahmed

Victor S. Thomas Research Professor in Divinity (HDS)
Emeritus
Ann D. Braude

Ann D. Braude

Senior Lecturer on American Religious History and Director of the Women's Studies in Religion Program
Amy Hollywood

Amy Hollywood

Elizabeth H. Monrad Professor of Christian Studies
ON LEAVE Fall 2023
Jordan

Mark D. Jordan

Andrew W. Mellon Research Professor of Christian Thought