Queer Studies in Religion Unit

In addition to an open-call for papers and sessions that engage broadly with themes related to queer and trans studies in religion, as well as papers that address the 2025 presidential theme of freedom in conversation with queer and trans studies in religion, we particularly invite proposals on the following themes and topics: 

• In honor of the 25th anniversary of Marcella Althaus-Reid’s Indecent Theology, papers that constructively, critically, and/or creatively engage with the work of Althaus-Reid and its impact on queer and trans studies in religion.
   
• In honor of the 50th anniversary of Gayle Rubin’s “The traffic in women: notes on the ‘political economy’ of sex,” papers engaging with and exploring the ongoing impact of Rubin’s work in queer and trans studies in religion. 
   
• Roundtables or sessions on new books in queer and trans studies, e.g. Ahmad Greene-Hayes, Underworld Work: Black Atlantic Religion-Making in Jim Crow New Orleans (University of Chicago Press); M Wolff, Body Problems: What Intersex Priest Sally Gross Teaches Us About Embodiment, Justice, and Belonging (Duke University Press). (Open to potential co-sponsorships) 
   
• For a potential co-sponsored session with the Childhood Studies and Religion Unit, we invite proposals at the intersection of queer and trans studies in religion and childhood. This may include queer, trans, and gender-non-conforming youth in historic and contemporary religious studies; revisiting “the figure of the child” and futurity in queer theories; trans youths, public and/or healthcare policy, and religion; the child, religion, and popular culture; anti-/blackness and the queer and/or trans child; trans minors and the United States v. Skrmetti case; other topics that take seriously the role of religion in queer and trans childhood. 
   
• For a potential co-sponsored session with the African Diaspora Religions unit, we invite proposals on the women who made Malcolm X possible. 2025 is the 100th anniversary of Malcolm X/el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, revolutionary, civil/human rights activist, and Muslim minister (May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965). Centering his work on the work Black women do to usher in freedom, and resurrecting from history the love and teachings of his mother, wife, children, and other women who made him possible we have chosen to honor Malcolm by honoring the Black women of his world. Writing on the beautiful intersections between Malcolm, Martin, and James Baldwin and their mothers, The Three Mothers, author, Anna Malaika Tubbs asks, “How was Malcolm influenced by Louise Little’s roots from the rebellious Carib island nation of Grenada, she, who spoke several languages, her ‘home-training’ lessons in recitations of the alphabet in French, and admonitions to her children to study, and correct misinformation given by their white teachers?” C. S’thembile West’s new book, Nation Women Negotiating Islam: Moving Beyond Boundaries in the Twentieth Century (2023), redeems the role of women, mothers, sisters, and daughters in the Nation of Islam (NOI). It sits at the intersection of Africana Studies, Religious and Islamic Studies providing the necessary counternarrative to past transgressive discourses. West recognizes and underscores the agency of NOI women in their negotiation of gender norms, sexual propriety, leadership models, education, and family building as a Black national project. Given our current political climate, this book can work as a tool for modeling equity and respectful scholarship on women’s roles as organizers, leaders, and change agents dedicated to uplifting and rehabilitating their communities as stewards of West’s arguments of  a “politics of protection.” We invite paper proposals in conversation with this theme and C. S’thembile West’s book. We are particularly interested in exploring this theme and this text in conversation with queer and trans studies in religion. For instance, how has the lack of attention to the role of women in Malcolm X's life and work reflect a kind of cis/heteronormativity that is bound up with the white supremacy that Malcom X combatted? How might queer and trans analysis help us better understand this role?
   
• For a potential co-sponsored session with the Political Theologies unit, proposals on n secularisms and atheisms in conversation with queer and trans studies in religion, particularly through the lens of freedom.
   
• Trans and queer religiosity and/or spirituality in Boston; emphasis on oral histories would be welcome, as well as the participation of local activists, artists, culture-bearers, etc. who hold these histories
   
• Indigenous religious practices
   
• AI, post-human, and/or digital ethics and embodiment