LGBTQ guide to AAR (American Academy of Religion) and SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) meeting 2011

A huge variety of LGBT and queer events are planned for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature Nov. 19-22 in San Francisco.

Here is a handy guide to more than 30 major LGBTQ activities at AAR-SBL. The joint annual meeting is the largest gathering of biblical and religion scholars in the world with more than 11,000 attendees.

This list is a useful summary for those attending -- and a sneak-preview of the latest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer religious scholarship for those of us who can’t be there.

Beginning with AIDS, the Bible and church life, the conference will address every major world religion from various racial and ethnic perspectives. They will cover everything from queer Buddhist utopias and transsexual Mormons to Jesus the woman, intersex theology, castration in medieval Islamic society and AIDS at 30 in a queer San Francisco church.

It’s possible to do LGBTQ religious events almost non-stop for five days! Sometimes multiple events even overlap. I spent many happy hours digging through data to compile this comprehensive guide.

As one friend wrote, “Wow - that is so great that you will be consolidating all the LGBTQ sessions - very helpful! Your blog is going to become my go-to site for choosing where to go next :)”

Best wishes to the many friends of the Jesus in Love Blog who will be attending AAR-SBL!

Disclaimer: These events may be subject to change. Let me know if I missed anything!

Note: Session numbers begin with "A" for AAR and other letters for SBL.

Friday, Nov. 18

A18-100 Preconference Workshop: Overcoming Barriers to Underrepresented Scholarship: A Strategy and Action WorkshopFriday - 9:00 am-4:30 pm
Despite more than four decades of feminist, antiracist, queer, and other insurgent scholarship, this work and the scholars who produce it still face many barriers in the academy.

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A18-301 Status of LGBTIQ Persons in the Profession Task Force Meeting
Friday - 6:00 pm-9:00 pm

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M18-410 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Caucus of SBL
11/18/2011 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM

Saturday, Nov. 19

A19–100 Special Topics Forum: Beyond Identity Politics
Saturday — 9:00 am–11:30 am
How do queer people move beyond identity-based politics, and how can or should we do so? Sponsored by the Status of LGBTIQ Persons in the Profession Committee.
Laurel C. Schneider, Chicago Theological Seminary, Presiding
Panelists:
Mari E. Castellanos, United Church of Christ
Amanullah De Sondy, University of Miami
Jasbir Puar, Rutgers University
Sister Mora Lee D'Klined, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
Sister Pat N. Leather, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

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A19-124 Buddhism in the West: Past and Present
Saturday - 9:00 am-11:30 am
Includes among others:
Ann Gleig, Millsaps College
"This Could Only Happen in California": Dharma Diversity and Queer Buddhist Utopias at the East Bay Meditation Center

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A19–115 Gay Men and Religion Group: Theme: Scholars and Activists Talk Back: Responses to Mark Jordan’s Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
Saturday — 9:00 AM–11:30 AM
Jay E. Johnson, Pacific School of Religion, Presiding
Panelists:
Elizabeth Leung, Pacific School of Religion
James Mitulski, New Spirit Community Church, Berkeley, CA
Penny Nixon, Congregational Church of San Mateo
Sharon Groves, Human Rights Campaign
Randall Miller, Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund and Pacific School of Religion
Mark Jordan, Harvard University, Responding

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A19–139 Special Topics Forum: LGBTIQ Mentoring Lunch
Saturday — 11:45 AM–12:45 PM

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A19-229 Queer Studies in Religion Group: Theme: Implications of Jasbir K. Puar's Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies) (Duke University Press, 2007) for the Study of Religion
Saturday - 1:00 pm-3:30 pm
Melissa M. Wilcox, Whitman College, Presiding
Panelists:
Rosemary R. Hicks, Tufts University
Joseph A. Marchal, Ball State University
Nayan Shah, University of California, San Diego
Brock Perry, Chicago Theological Seminary
Maia Kotrosits, Union Theological Seminary
Responding:
Jasbir Puar, Rutgers University

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P19-291 African Association for the Study of Religion
11/19/2011 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Includes
“There is Something In Me”: Narratives of Lesbian and Transgender Sangomas in Contemporary South Africa
Rachel Schneider Vlachos, Rice University

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S19-214 Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible: Theme: Material Embodiments and Contemporary Practices
11/19/2011 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Includes:
Gagnon's Unnatural Homosexual and Wittig's Monstrous Lesbian
Gillian Townsley, University of Otago
Looks at “The Bible and Homosexual Practice” by Robert Gagnon and “The Lesbian Body” by Monique Wittig

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A19-302 Gender Theory, Intersectionality, and Justice Cluster
Saturday - 4:00 pm-6:30 pm
Includes:
I am ___: Queer/Ethnic Identity in Contemporary Western Contexts
Jared Vazquez, Phillips Theological Seminary
“a way forward will be articulated for queer ethnic (namely Caribbean latina/os) people in the United States”

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A19-305:  North American Religions Section: Theme: Rethinking Key Paradigms in American Religion: "Black Church," "Queering Religion," "Nature Religion," and "Material Culture"
Saturday - 4:00 pm-6:30 pm
Includes:
Captive Bodies, Queer Religions: Scripting North American Religious Difference
Megan Goodwin, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

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A19–405 LGBTIQ Scholars/Scholars of LGBTIQ Studies Reception
Saturday — 8:00 PM–10:00 PM

Sunday, Nov. 20

A20-131 Religion and Sexuality Consultation: Theme: Contesting Bodies, Configuring Sexuality
Sunday - 9:00 am-11:30 am
Includes:
"I Am a Daughter of My Heavenly Father": Transsexual Mormons and Performed Gender Essentialism
Jill Peterfeso, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Sexual Diversity, Islamic Jurisprudence, and Sociality
Nadeem Mahomed, University of Johannesburg

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A20–137 SWP, REM, and LGBTIQ Women’s Mentoring Lunch
Sunday  — 11:45 AM–12:45 PM
Sponsored by the Status of Women in the Profession Committee; Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee, and the Status of LGBTIQ Persons in the Profession Committee

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A20-233 Queer Studies in Religion Group and Religion and Cities Group: Theme: Queer Practices in San Francisco
Sunday - 1:00 pm-2:30 pm
L. Benjamin Rolsky, Drew University, Presiding

Sharon Fennema, Graduate Theological Union
Strategies of Theodicy in an Epidemic: Worship, HIV/AIDS, and the Intimacy of God at the Metropolitan Community Church, San Francisco
(Her research includes an interview with the author of this blog, Kittredge Cherry!)

Anthony Hoshaw, Chicago Theological Seminary
The Apostle Paul's "Queer Politics"?

Jeff Wilson, University of Waterloo
"All Beings are Equally Embraced by Amida Buddha": Jodo Shinshu Buddhism and Same-Sex Marriage in North America

Responding:
Drew Bourn, Stanford University

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A20-207 Religion and Politics Section: Theme: The Front Lines of the Culture Wars
Sunday - 1:00 pm-2:30 pm
Includes, among others:
Interreligious Activism in Support of Marriage Equality
Helene Slessarev-Jamir, Claremont School of Theology

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A20-275 Lesbian-Feminisms in Conversation with Disability Studies
Sunday — 3:00 PM–4:30 PM
Marie Cartier, California State University, Northridge, Presiding

Julia Watts Belser, Missouri State University
Brides and Blemishes: Queering Women’s Disability in the Babylonian Talmud

Heike Peckruhn, Iliff School of Theology and University of Denver
Sensing Limitations and/in Constructive Body Theologies

Marion S. Grau, Graduate Theological Union
Redeeming Bodies: Cyborgs, Transhumanist Fantasies, Disability, and the Ends of Embodiment

Janet R. Jakobsen, Barnard College, Responding

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A20-267 Black Theology Group: Theme: (In)Visible Lives: A Critical Conversation on Roger A. Sneed's Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism (Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
Sunday - 3:00 pm-4:30 pm
Pamela Lightsey, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Presiding
Panelists:
Ronald Neal, Wake Forest University
Patrick S. Cheng, Episcopal Divinity School
Margaret Aymer, Interdenominational Theological Center
Almeda Wright, Pfeiffer University
Responding:
Roger A. Sneed, Furman University

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S20-335 Reading, Theory and the Bible: Theme: Judith Butler and Biblical Interpretation
11/20/2011 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Includes:
Trans Formations: Judith Butler, David Reimer, and the Dance of King David
Teresa Hornsby, Drury University

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A20-319 Gay Men and Religion Group: Theme: Slippery Texts/Queer Hermeneutics
Sunday — 5:00 PM–6:30 PM
W. Scott Haldeman, Chicago Theological Seminary, Presiding

Christopher Ashley, Union Theological Seminary
Practices of Discernment and Prophecy in Angels in America

Devan Hite, Chicago Theological Seminary
“That They Might Have Joy”: Toward a Postheteronormative, Gay Mormon Heremeneutic

Karen Bray, Drew University
Don’t Cry for Me Walter Brueggemann: Camp as Queer Lament

Catherine Roach, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Responding

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A20-315 Bible, Theology, and Postmodernity Group
Sunday - 5:00 pm-6:30 pm
Includes:
The Body of Christ as a Queer Community
Adriaan Van Klinken, Utrecht University

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A20-328 Ritual Studies Group: Theme: Case Studies in Ritual Practice
Sunday - 5:00 pm-6:30 pm
Includes:
Dismantling Gender: Between Ancient Gnostic Ritual and Modern Queer BDSM
Jonathan Cahana, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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Monday, Nov. 21

A21-116 Gay Men and Religion Group and Lesbian-Feminist Issues and Religion Group:
Theme: Queer Eclipses: The Future of Gendered Sexual Identities in the Study of Religion
Monday — 9:00 AM–11:30 AM
Yvonne Zimmerman, Methodist Theological School, Ohio, Presiding

Thelathia Young, Emory University, Sara Rosenau, Drew University, and Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology
Intersectional Bodies: Disrupting Queerness in Religious Discourse

John Howell, University of Chicago
Stonewalled: Orthodoxy, Heresy, and Rhetorical Violence in the Gay Generation Gap

E. L. Kornegay, Chicago Theological Seminary
Baldwin on Top: Towards a Heteroanomalous Queer Calculus
Explores author James Baldwin's use of queerness to create radical inclusivity

Mary E. Hunt, Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual, and Patrick S. Cheng, Episcopal Divinity School, Responding

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S21-228 LGBT/Queer Hermeneutics: Theme: Wisdom's Women
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM 11/21/2011
Robert von Thaden, Mercyhurst College, Presiding

Angela Yarber, Graduate Theological Union
Undulating the Holy: The Shulamite’s Dance and Queer Sexuality in Song of Songs 7:1-4

Melanie A. Howard, Princeton Theological Seminary
Wiles of the Wicked Transvestite: The Queering of Gender and Boundaries in 4Q184
A queer reading of documents from Qumran, 4Q184

Shannon McAlister, Catholic University of America
Jesus the Woman: Wisdom’s Gender-Bender in the Patristic and Medieval Interpretation of Luke 15:8-10

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A21–315 Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Group: Theme: Coming Home: LGBTQ Asian Americans and Religious Communities
Monday — 4:00 PM–6:30 PM
Devin Singh, Yale University, Presiding
Panelists:
Michael Sepidoza Campos, Graduate Theological Union
Elizabeth Leung, Pacific School of Religion
Gina Masequesmay, California State University, Northridge
Su Yon Pak, Union Theological Seminary
Patrick S. Cheng, Episcopal Divinity School, Responding

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A21-324 Lesbian-Feminist Issues and Religion Group: Theme: Borderlands and Lesbian Nation: Sacred Space?
Monday — 4:00 PM–6:30 PM
Many presentations in this session are based on Gloria Anzaldúa’s book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Marie Cartier, Claremont Graduate University and California State University, Northridge, Presiding

Kathleen Douglass, Iliff School of Theology and University of Denver
Vibrating Spaces: Transformational Relating in Borderland Space

An Yountae, Drew University
Amor Fronterizo y el Renacimiento de la Tierra Madre: Dialectics of Love in the Borderland/Homeland

Margaret Robinson, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Your Borders are Not My Boundaries: A Fence-sitting Halfbreed Reads La Frontera

Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Iliff School of Theology and University of Denver
Must I be a Lesbian Feminist?: Borderlands as the Si(gh)te for a Queer Mestizo

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A21-303 American Religion in the Age of AIDS
Monday - 4:00 pm-6:30 pm
Includes:
Lynne Gerber, University of California, Berkeley
“Is Everyone Healed but Me?”: AIDS at Thirty in a Queer San Francisco Church

Amy Koehlinger, Florida State University
Passionate Play: Catholicism and Damien Ministries
Argues that Damien Ministries is best understood through the rubric of passionate, queer play.

Anthony Petro, New York University
After the Wrath of God: American Christians and the Biopolitics of AIDS

Responding:
Mark Jordan, Harvard University

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S21-302 Strategy Session for Non-Traditional Hermeneutics
11/21/2011 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Involves SBL's LGBT/Queer Hermeneutics program unit plus many others.

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A21–401 Film: We Were Here: Voices from the AIDS Years in San Francisco
Monday — 8:00 PM–10:00 PM
The film documents the coming of what was called the “Gay Plague” in the early 1980s.

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A21-400 Film: La Mission
Monday - 8:00 pm-10:00 pm
In San Francisco's Mission District, a macho father (played by Benjamin Bratt) struggles when he finds out that his son is gay.

Tuesday, Nov. 22

A22-124 Queer Studies in Religion Group: Theme: Queerly Rereading Texts and Traditions
Tuesday - 9:00 am-11:30 am
Thelathia Young, Emory University, Presiding

Ahmed Ragab, Harvard University
Bodies in Transformation: Castration and Castrates in Medieval Islamic Society

Jay Michaelson, Hebrew University
Queering Kabbalistic Gender Performance: Possibilities for a Contemporary Queer Theology

Lisa Brooks, University of Colorado
Karma as an "Apparatus": The Etiology of Queer Sexualities in Classical Ayurveda

Jessica A. Boon, Southern Methodist University
Intersex Theology?: Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534), Transgender Miracles, and Marian Authority

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S22-125 Joint Session With: LGBT/Queer Hermeneutics, Disability Studies and Healthcare in the Bible and Near East: Theme: Intersections: Disability and Queer Theory in Conversation
11/22/2011 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Lynn Huber, Elon University, Presiding

David Tabb Stewart, California State University, Long Beach
Severe Bodies
The man who is a full castrato (Deut 23) and the woman with a prolapsed uterus (Num 5) have the most severely disabled sexual bodies in the Hebrew Bible.

Anna Rebecca Solevag, Universitetet i Oslo
No Nuts? No Problem! The Baptized Eunuch in Acts 8:26-40

Miranda N. Pillay, University of the Western Cape
Healing in the New Testament: Towards Integrating Individual and Societal Intervention Strategies in an AIDS Era

Deborah Creamer, Iliff School of Theology, Respondent

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A22-121 Latina/o Religion, Culture, and Society Group: Theme: Hot Rods, Cool Music, and the Queering of Familia: Perspectives on the Film La Mission through Sexuality, Popular Religion, and Violence
Tuesday - 9:00 am-11:30 am
Elias Ortega-Aponte, Princeton University, Presiding
Panelists:
Wendy Arce, Graduate Theological Union
Patrick Reyes, Boston University
Raul Rico, Boston University
Orlando Espin, University of San Diego
Jacqueline Hidalgo, Williams College
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UPDATE: A couple of readers asked Are the AAR-SBL presentations available in any way to people who can't attend?

The panels are usually not recorded or available in printed form, but abstracts of some of the papers are online now. Visit the AAR and SLB links below, go to the online program books and start searching. You can also try contacting the speakers directly.

It’s not easy to get access to this information. The Jesus in Love AAR-SBL guide offers a rare glimpse into the fairly private world of scholarship-in-the-making.

For more info, visit:

American Academy of Religion
http://www.aarweb.org/

Society of Biblical Literature
http://www.sbl-site.org/default.aspx

Here’s another resource for those who want to follow the latest research and scholarship of various LGBT theologians (and others).
http://www.academia.edu/

Here are some of the LGBTQ books and films that will be discussed in depth at AAR 2011: