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GODFULL: Shape Shifting God as Queer
A performative symposium convened by Carlos Motta and Jared Gilbert
April 12, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
James Chapel, Union Theological Seminary
Broadway at 121st Street
New York City
Participants: Lovett/Codagnone, Darnell L. Moore, Ernesto Pujol, Robert Sember, Union Queer Caucus and FIERCE, Samita Sinha and Linn Tonstad
Godfull: Shape Shifting God as Queer is a performative symposium convened by artist Carlos Motta and minister Jared Gilbert featuring performative lectures and performances by a group of academics, activists, artists and theologians to explore the intersections of queer politics, spirituality and social justice.
The regulation of sexual activity is the primary system for controlling bodies within religions and the societies they influence. Such regulations authorize violence against bodies as well as the depravation and social stratification of gender and sexual identities. As lesbians and gays have gained unprecedented visibility and in some cases legislative recognition, American faiths have by and large opened their doors to these homosexuals who manage to comply with institutionalized systems of social respectability. These faiths are now unwittingly complicit in new forms of heteronormative oppression.
Queer sexuality, bodies and activism form the ground from which queer art, spirituality and political narratives nurture new visions of a just society. At the same time queer communities remain in constant tension with these visions, always exploring the evolving and deviant backside of spiritual, political and social spaces.
Godfull: Shape Shifting God as Queer explores queerness as the constant disrupting force in the ground of theology and sexual politics. The participants speak of a "queerness" in theology that is particular and explicit of the queer body, a "queerness" that represents a constant pursuit of new social and spiritual revelations through deviant, subversive and indecent affirmations that will continue to challenge repressive notions of morality and respectability.
Image: Lovett/Codagnone, For You, 2013. Photo by Jared Gilbert
