Visit to USA: September 2012

I'm pleased to say that, in September 2012, I'll have the opportunity to revisit the USA to talk to scholars, clergy and seminarians there about my Intersex, Identity and Disability project, and the implications of intersex for the way theologies of sexuality are done in church, seminary and university settings.

From 4th-9th September I'll be in Boston and Cambridge.

On 5th September I'll be presenting in a class on intersex and queer liturgies at Harvard Divinity School. I'm grateful to Mark D. Jordan and Sharon Fennema for arranging this opportunity.

On 6th September at 7pm I'll be presenting at Harvard Divinity School , with the title "Considering Intersex and Identity in Community Life: Opportunities and Challenges for Faith Communities". This will be followed by a discussion moderated by Sharon Fennema and Cameron Partridge.
On 7th September from 3-5pm I'll be taking part in a panel on intersex and transgender theologies at Episcopal Divinity School, organized in association with Boston Theological Institute and the Lincoln Theological Institute. My co-panellists are Megan DeFranza, Cameron Partridge and Iain Stanford, and  Patrick S. Cheng will host and chair the panel. I'm grateful to all of them for the opportunity and especially to Patrick for helping to organize this.

From 10th-14th September I'll be on the other coast, staying in Berkeley.

On Tuesday 11th September I'll be delivering the third annual Georgia Harkness Lecture at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, at the Pacific School of Religion. Jay Emerson Johnson has been a great link person at CLGS and it's thanks to him that this is possible. My title is "Asking About What is Better: Intersex, Disability and Inaugurated Eschatology". I'll be suggesting that the overlaps between theological conceptions of disability and those of intersex are particularly evident in relation to two areas, the erosion of agency (especially sexual agency), and the issues raised by prenatal testing for certain conditions. These are exacerbated by narrow social and theological understandings of morally-significant sexual intercourse and healthily embodied personhood along specifically gendered lines. I'll suggest that just theologies for intersex people must be grounded in an eschatology which figures their variant bodies non-pathologically and acknowledges that all human sex is, in fact, uncertain.

On Thursday 13th September I'll be at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, where I'll be speaking as part of the Thursday Forum. Here, my title is "Considering Intersex and Identity in Church Life: Opportunities and Challenges for Congregations and Clergy". Very many thanks to Marion Grau for all her help in setting this up.

I'll add more details about the tour as they become available. Perhaps I'll meet some of you along the way!

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