This co-sponsored session explores contemporary challenges to teaching about religion and sexuality in contexts that are explicitly hostile, restrictive, or antagonistic to non-normative gender identities. The panel brings together three concrete examples that reflect on pedagogical strategies that can respond to various aspects of censorship or related difficulties encountered in teaching about religion and sexuality. The first paper examines the necessity of teaching as a resistant act in contemporary Florida, the second paper demonstrates how autotheory becomes a tool of rendering theoretical insights personally relevant as resource for living amidst hostile educational climates, and the third paper examines a particular strategy of teaching about gender identity and queer theory within teaching contexts dominated by conservative religious ideology.
This argument examines the Florida GOP’s actions rejecting LGBTQ+, African-American, and gender education (“education regarding marginalized groups”). I argue that the Florida GOP’s actions reflect a commitment to a view of capitalism that reifies extant hegemonic power and subordinates marginalized groups, in particular LGBTQ+ people and African-Americans. The instruction of religion requires the scholar to grapple with the threat of state censorship and, more pressingly, with the challenges of using education as an effective form of resistance. Because teaching religion is already politicized by Florida's government, the scholar must see their work as resistance. Drawing upon works such as Tonstad 2018, Bretherton 2009, and Springs 2018, I contend that scholars of religion are in unique position to perform this form of resistance as coalition building, avoiding the pitfalls of a blase liberal desire for tolerance.
For the past several years, I have co-taught, along with a colleague, a joint Philosophy and Religion course called Queer Theory. In the service of teaching students not only concepts, but how to improve their own lives and understandings of themselves, my co-professor and I have encouraged them to engage in autotheory throughout the course. This approach allows students to focus on the things that are most germane to their own lives, while benefiting from critical analysis of even the most familiar elements of their existence. In this way, we can nurture critical thinkers who can understand and articulate the interplays of sexuality, gender, power, and identity in their own lives, giving them the tools to respond without despair to the restrictive and often hostile climate that surrounds them.
Although I work at an institution where there is academic freedom, most of my students come from a more conservative church background and are not comfortable discussing gender identity or queer theory. My challenge was to design an assignment accessible to undergraduate students that encouraged open discussion about gender and identity and encouraged students to think critically about biblical texts. I designed a unit about the masculinity of Moses in conversation with the portrayal of Moses in the film “The Prince of Egypt” (Dreamworks). By focusing on depictions of the body, it was easier for students to enter conversations. The abstract and conceptual become tangible. In this paper, I will discuss the details of the assignment as well as my pedagogical approach. Most importantly, I hope to receive feedback on what could use improvement, and different angles I might have missed.