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Presentation Description
Panel Summary:
This panel delves into the intersection of queerness and religious/spiritual perspectives, exploring themes such as queer animality and eco-spirituality in biblical interpretation, queering kinship with a focus on disability and ecology, envisioning queer possibilities within the Chthulucene, radical hope and futurity in queer religiosity, and collective rituals in more-than-human worlds.
Dr. Ken Stone: “‘Like Fish Caught in a Terrible Net’: Queer Animality, Ecospirituality, and Biblical Interpretation”
Presenter bio: Ken Stone is Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Bible, Culture, and Hermeneutics at Chicago Theological Seminary. He is the author of, among other books, Reading the Hebrew Bible with Animal Studies (Stanford University Press, 2018) and Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex, and Bible in Queer Perspective (T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, 2005) and co-editor with Teresa Hornsby of Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship (Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2011). In recent years his teaching and research interests have turned in the direction of Queer Eco-Spiritualities, with particular attention to the roles that animals and animalities, and queer biblical interpretation, can play in such eco-spiritualities.
Dr. Julia Watts Belser: “Queering Kinship: Disability, Ecology, and the Elemental World”
Presenter bio: Julia Watts Belser (she/her) is Professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University and core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies program, as well as a rabbi and longtime activist for disability, LGBTQ, and gender justice. Her research brings classical Jewish texts into conversation with disability studies, feminist and queer theory, and environmental justice. She is the author of several scholarly books, including Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem (Oxford University Press, 2018). She also directs Disability and Climate Change: A Public Archive Project, a project that partners with grassroots disability leaders to document the way that disability communities are responding to climate change. Her latest book, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon Press, 2023), won a National Jewish Book Award. She’s an avid wheelchair hiker, a devoted gardener, and a lover of wild places.
Dr. Laurel Schneider: “When the Spirit is Dirt: Queer Imagining in the Chthulucene”
Laurel C. Schneider is Professor of Religious Studies and the Graduate Department of Religion, as well as affiliated faculty in the Gender & Sexuality Studies department at Vanderbilt University. She received her BA from Dartmouth College, her MDiv from Harvard Divinity School, and her PhD from Vanderbilt University. She currently serves as Vice President and member of the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Religion. Among other scholarly books and publications, she is the author of multiple essays in queer theologies and of two monographs, including Beyond Monotheism: A Theology of Multiplicity (Routledge, 2007). Most recently, she co-wrote Queer Soul, Queer Theology: Redemption in Real Life with Thelathia Nikki Young (Routledge 2021). She works on queer theories of multiplicity and Christian theologies from a postcolonial, anti-racist and liberationist perspective, and is a student of Native American religious and philosophical traditions. When she can be there, she shares her home with Emilie Townes and Winnie the dog on Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts.
Emily Stevens: "Queering Religion: Radical Hope, Futurity, & Queer Witches"
Presenter bio: Emily is a doctoral student (Candidate, by the time of the summit) in Human Sexuality at California Institute of Integral Studies. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees each in psychology and gender studies and has published research on the topics of queer health and intimacy, queer family formations, and queer religiosity. Much of Emily's work in psychology, gender studies, and sexuality, have led her to an interdisciplinary overlap where religious studies have often come into play. Emily’s current research asks how queer religiosity may inform broader cultures and psychological worlds in order to provide more effective healing modalities for queer populations. Her work is informed by intersectional feminism, crip theory, queer theory, critical sexuality studies, and decolonial contexts.
Moderator: Erin Vigil, PhD Student in Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion at CIIS
Hope in Queer Spiritual and Religious Landscapes
Panel Summary:
This panel delves into the intersection of queerness and religious/spiritual perspectives, exploring themes such as queer animality and eco-spirituality in biblical interpretation, queering kinship with a focus on disability and ecology, envisioning queer possibilities within the Chthulucene, radical hope and futurity in queer religiosity, and collective rituals in more-than-human worlds.
Dr. Ken Stone: “‘Like Fish Caught in a Terrible Net’: Queer Animality, Ecospirituality, and Biblical Interpretation”
Presenter bio: Ken Stone is Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Bible, Culture, and Hermeneutics at Chicago Theological Seminary. He is the author of, among other books, Reading the Hebrew Bible with Animal Studies (Stanford University Press, 2018) and Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex, and Bible in Queer Perspective (T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, 2005) and co-editor with Teresa Hornsby of Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship (Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2011). In recent years his teaching and research interests have turned in the direction of Queer Eco-Spiritualities, with particular attention to the roles that animals and animalities, and queer biblical interpretation, can play in such eco-spiritualities.
Dr. Julia Watts Belser: “Queering Kinship: Disability, Ecology, and the Elemental World”
Presenter bio: Julia Watts Belser (she/her) is Professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University and core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies program, as well as a rabbi and longtime activist for disability, LGBTQ, and gender justice. Her research brings classical Jewish texts into conversation with disability studies, feminist and queer theory, and environmental justice. She is the author of several scholarly books, including Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem (Oxford University Press, 2018). She also directs Disability and Climate Change: A Public Archive Project, a project that partners with grassroots disability leaders to document the way that disability communities are responding to climate change. Her latest book, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon Press, 2023), won a National Jewish Book Award. She’s an avid wheelchair hiker, a devoted gardener, and a lover of wild places.
Dr. Laurel Schneider: “When the Spirit is Dirt: Queer Imagining in the Chthulucene”
Laurel C. Schneider is Professor of Religious Studies and the Graduate Department of Religion, as well as affiliated faculty in the Gender & Sexuality Studies department at Vanderbilt University. She received her BA from Dartmouth College, her MDiv from Harvard Divinity School, and her PhD from Vanderbilt University. She currently serves as Vice President and member of the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Religion. Among other scholarly books and publications, she is the author of multiple essays in queer theologies and of two monographs, including Beyond Monotheism: A Theology of Multiplicity (Routledge, 2007). Most recently, she co-wrote Queer Soul, Queer Theology: Redemption in Real Life with Thelathia Nikki Young (Routledge 2021). She works on queer theories of multiplicity and Christian theologies from a postcolonial, anti-racist and liberationist perspective, and is a student of Native American religious and philosophical traditions. When she can be there, she shares her home with Emilie Townes and Winnie the dog on Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts.
Emily Stevens: "Queering Religion: Radical Hope, Futurity, & Queer Witches"
Presenter bio: Emily is a doctoral student (Candidate, by the time of the summit) in Human Sexuality at California Institute of Integral Studies. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees each in psychology and gender studies and has published research on the topics of queer health and intimacy, queer family formations, and queer religiosity. Much of Emily's work in psychology, gender studies, and sexuality, have led her to an interdisciplinary overlap where religious studies have often come into play. Emily’s current research asks how queer religiosity may inform broader cultures and psychological worlds in order to provide more effective healing modalities for queer populations. Her work is informed by intersectional feminism, crip theory, queer theory, critical sexuality studies, and decolonial contexts.
Moderator: Erin Vigil, PhD Student in Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion at CIIS
