REL 112
Sex, Gender, Religion Fall 2023
Division II
Cross-listed WGSS 112
This is not the current course catalog

The relationship between sex, gender, and religion is one that is hotly debated in our current political context. Many contemporary issues such as abortion, sexual identity, transgender rights are all informed by religious traditions. While religion is most often critiqued for its misogyny and homophobia, it also opens up unexpected possibilities for gender and sexual diversity. This course will consider both these paradoxes and contradictions in religious traditions and their engagement with gender and sexuality. The course will consider how religious traditions have shaped our current discourses on sexual and gender diversity, how religious tradition understand and interact with modern constructions of sexual and gender identity, and how religious queer communities imagine queer possibilities in conversation with their religious traditions. In exploring these topics, the course will cover global religious traditions both historically and in the contemporary.