This issue of The Scholar and Feminist Online, edited by Elizabeth A. Castelli, brings together scholarship rooted in Queer Studies and Religious Studies—but most importantly, this volume is a space in which scholars explore the intersections of these areas of inquiry which are too-often constructed as entirely separate. The contributions to this volume are largely drawn from a BCRW-convening entitled “At the Intersection of Queer Studies and Religion,” held in November 2013. Pushing beyond a notion of Religious Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies as discrete spaces, the authors in this issue insist upon nuance, complexity, and accuracy. Contributions to this volume both bring Queer Studies to bear on histories, terminology, and processes, but also serve as a provocation to approach and engage with these areas of research more dynamically.
As Elizabeth A. Castelli argues in her Introduction, “these short essays contribute to a theoretical and empirical cartography for mapping the terrain at the intersections of queer studies and religion. Written at a particular moment—just before a series of significant political shifts toward the right around the globe, with more in the offing—this collection offers a snapshot of thinking, theorizing, and documentary preservation.” While criss-crossing huge swaths of time and space, one of the primary and lasting contributions of this volume may be its ability to help us think through the current political moment, inviting us to think critically about the information with which we are presented and to push back against constructed—and dangerous—binaries.
