The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion, Sexuality, and Gender

by Boisvert, Donald L.; Daniel-hughes, Carly

• ISBN13: 9781474237789
• ISBN10: 1474237789
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2017-01-12
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

How do religion, gender and sexuality interact? How have they impacted, and continue to impact, human culture? The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion, Sexuality and Gender brings together, for the first time, the key texts in the field. Designed as a textbook for use in a classroom setting, it offers thought-provoking selections of some of the most compelling and timely readings available today.

The Reader is divided into three parts (bodies; desires; performances). Each considers, from a thematic perspective, the ways in which people have made sense of their religious and sexual experiences, the ways they imagine and talk about gender, sex and the sacred, and the multiple meanings they ascribe to them. Traditions represented include indigenous spiritualities, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Asian traditions and new religious movements. Some readings are more theoretical or historical in nature, thereby providing wide-ranging contexts for reflection and discussion.

The reader includes extensive introductions to the book as a whole and to each of the three parts, as well as short paragraphs contextualizing each of the readings. Each section includes discussion questions for classroom use; additional readings and resources, as well as a glossary of key terms, are also provided. The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion, Sexuality and Gender is an ideal resource for courses on religion and sexuality, religion and gender, or religion and contemporary culture more generally.

Author Biography

Donald L. Boisvert is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at Concordia University, Canada, where he also teaches in the sexuality studies programme. He is the author of Out on Holy Ground: Meditations on Gay Men's Spirituality (2000) and Sanctity and Male Desire: A Gay Reading of Saints (2004). He co-edited the two volume reference collection, Queer Religion (2013).

Carly Daniel-Hughes is Associate Professor of Religion at Concordia University, Canada where she teaches courses in Christian history as well as gender, sexuality and religion. She is the author of The Salvation of the Flesh in Tertullian of Carthage: Dressing for the Resurrection (2011) and co-editorof Dressing Judeans and Christians in Antiquity (2014).

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part 1: Bodies
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Bodies as Symbolic Systems
1.3 Sexed Bodies and Religious Bodies
1.4 Discussion questions
Part 2: Desires
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Religion and the Erotic
2.3 Desires and Pleasures
2.4 Discussion Questions
Part 3: Performances
3.1. Introduction
3.2 (De)Constructing Gender
3.3 Gender and Religion
3.4 Discussion Questions
Glossary
Notes
References
Index