The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion, Sexuality, and Gender

Description

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.

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).

Bringing together a wide-ranging collection of readings from feminist, gender, and queer studies, this volume is a useful sourcebook for those wishing an initial introduction to historical and contemporary conversations in these key areas within the study of religion. * Melissa M. Wilcox, Associate Professor of Religion and Gender Studies, Whitman College, USA * The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion, Sexuality, and Gender provides a provocative, thematically rich, and theoretically sophisticated collection of essays for college and university courses dealing with the attitudes of different religious traditions toward sexuality and gender. The reader is divided into three parts: the first on "Bodies" and the ambivalent ways in which they have been and are viewed; the second on "Desires" and how they are expressed, repressed, and normalized in religious discourse; and the third on "Performances," which underscores the performative nature of gender and its inherent instability. The essays included in the reader are all "classics" in this relatively new field of scholarship. In order to help readers engage and evaluate the various essays a series of questions has been appended to each part and a glossary of terms and concepts appears at the end. The Boomsbury Reader fills an important gap in the literature available for introductory courses on the intersection between religion and gender studies. It should have a wide appeal across the disciplines. * Allison P. Coudert, Paul and Marie Castelfranco Chair in the Study of Religion, University of California at Davis, USA * This volume does not only present a careful selection of seminal (to use a word with a sexual undertone) readings into the rich and dynamic field of religion, sexuality and gender, but it also does an excellent job in introducing these readings. The introductions to the book as a whole, the main sections, and the individual texts are extremely helpful in providing context and orientating the reader to some of the broader questions and relevant issues. Covering a wide range of religious traditions, historical periods and geographical regions, this volume is a great resource for students in undergraduate courses in religion, sexuality and gender. * Adriaan van Klinken, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Leeds, UK *