Home and hiddenness: queer theology, domestication and institutions

ABSTRACT

This essay examines tropes of hiddenness and domestication in queer theology, particularly in light of the increasing mainstreaming of queer theologies in institutional (e.g. university, seminary, church) settings, and the inclusion of queer theologies by straight academics and teachers on their syllabi. Drawing on James C. Scott’s work on revolution as a luxury of the elite (by way of the Arab Spring, the UK riots of 2011, and the US demonstrations in 2014), and Judith Halberstam’s construction of “failure” as a strategy of queer resistance, I ask whether there will continue to be a role for “shadow queernesses” which reject institutional acceptability. However, I also suggest that the increased visibility of queer theology within mainstream institutions does not inevitably imply compromise or “toothlessness,” but may in fact testify to the pre-existing presence of queer diversity in multiple contexts and the inhabitation by queer scholars of various “homes.”

KEYWORDS:

• Queer theology
• hiddenness
• domestication
• activism
• revolution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Susannah Cornwall is Lecturer in Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter, UK, and Director of EXCEPT (Exeter Centre for Ethics and Practical Theology). She is the author of four books, of which the latest is Un/familiar Theology: Reconceiving Sex, Reproduction and Generativity (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017).

ORCID

Susannah Cornwall http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7768-0054

Notes

1 Althaus-Reid and Isherwood, “Thinking Theology and Queer Theory,” 204.

2 Butler, “Against Proper Objects,” 21.

3 Althaus-Reid and Isherwood, “Thinking Theology and Queer Theory,” 304.

4 I am grateful to Wan Wei-Hsien for a conversation on James C. Scott’s work which helped to ignite many of the thoughts I develop in this paper.

5 Walters, “From Here to Queer,” 840–1.

6 Thomas, “Straight with a Twist,” 14.

7 Schlichter, “Queer at Last?” 555.

8 Cornwall, Controversies in Queer Theology.

9 For instance, the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford is currently required to be ordained a priest in the Church of England or an Episcopal church in communion with it, or to be eligible for and prepared to accept ordination into the Church of England. Since 2014, the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity at Oxford has no longer required that holders be ordained, but they must still be members of the Church of England or a church in communion with it. I am indebted to Ben Fulford, who brought these examples to my attention, and to Anna Rowlands, Mike Higton, John Bradbury, Gerard Loughlin and Nick Adams for further conversation on this topic.

10 Foucault, “The Revolt in Iran,” 219.

11 In a UK context, “further education” refers to education and qualifications undertaken after compulsory school leaving age but at a pre-university level. Further education might include academic qualifications such as A-Levels, Highers or Baccalaureat (the standard qualifications necessary for university entry); and vocational qualifications such as NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications) and HNDs (Higher National Diplomas). Further education is distinguished from higher education, which connotes study and research at undergraduate level and beyond.

12 In what follows, I refer to those who participated in the riots as “riotous” rather than “rioters.” The term “riotous” carries a greater sense of playfulness and deliberate agency, and has been less stigmatized than the alternative. One can be “riotous” out of high spirits as well as out of a sense of desperation, and riotousness is an activity as opposed to an ontology. The term “rioters” has, in some of the discussion following the events, seemed to be used almost entirely pejoratively.

13 Lewis, Reading the Riots.

14 Tweets are short text messages of 140 characters or fewer published via the social media platform Twitter.

15 Lewis, Reading the Riots, 4–5.

16 Ibid., 10.

17 Ibid., 20.

18 Ibid., 23.

19 Ibid., 25.

20 Ibid., 26.

21 Ibid., 11.

22 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 45–6.

23 Ibid., 54.

24 Ibid., 55.

25 Ibid., 217.

26 Shaye, “On Ferguson and Property.”

27 Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology; Althaus-Reid, The Queer God.

28 Savastano, “Gay Men as Virtuosi.” For further discussion of these tropes and their use within theology specifically, see, for example, Marion Grau’s discussions of the trickster as hermeneut, and the hermeneutical and prophetic potential of “divine fools.” Grau, Refiguring Theological Hermenuetics, 105–62. See also Mollenkott, “Reading the Bible form Low and Outside”; Garrigan, “Queer Worship,” 225–6; Shore-Goss, “The Holy Spirit as Mischief-Maker”; Mesner, “Innovations in Queer Theology”; Gorsline, “Faithful to a Very Queer-Acting God.”

29 Althaus-Reid and Isherwood, “Thinking Theology and Queer Theory,” 304.

30 Halberstam, “The Anti-Social Turn in Queer Studies.”

31 Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure, 88.

32 Ibid., 4.

33 Orbach, Fat is a Feminist Issue.

34 Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure, 4.

35 Scott, Seeing Like a State, 33–6.

36 Ibid., 23.

37 Ibid.

38 Althaus-Reid suggests that liberation theology, Latin American women’s theology and other “indigenous” theologies have been simultaneously exoticized and contained by scholars in the West: “These are interesting theological subthemes worthy of being visited, and people in the West are encouraged to visit them as if going to a botanical garden. Such a theme park conception thwarts pluralism. It may be the theology of the poor, but it still obeys the tradition of the thinking and logic of the centre, and, although in opposition, it perpetuates the centre’s discourse by default. It is the visitor to the theme park who carries meaning to the product.” Althaus-Reid, “Gustavo Gutiérrez Goes to Disneyland,” 42.

39 Cornwall, Controversies in Queer Theology, 224ff.

40 Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” 278; cf. Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure, 130.

41 Loughlin, “What Is Queer?”

42 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 202.

43 Ibid., 203.

44 Ibid., 215.

45 Althaus-Reid, “The Bi/Girl Writings,” 105.