Description:

As It Transpired: Multiple Lineages and Trans/Religious Study

A Talk by Ashley King

Recent works by trans authors wrestle with religious practices that both shape and reject trans people, often as part of a broader negotiation between one’s family of origin and one’s chosen family. Existing scholarship has not accounted for the unique form of religious reflection that emerges in these works. Employing literary criticism and autoethnography, I will explore trans/religious identity across distinct sets of intergenerational relationships, or what I call multiple lineages. I will demonstrate how trans people practice multiple lineages to craft identity in a body that has been formed in more than one narrative context. Though specifically articulated in trans/religious practice, the framework of multiple lineages offers an interpretive resource for other contexts, including religious conversion, postcolonial and diasporic identity, and the transmission of religious teachings.

For more infromation email religious-studies@northwestern.edu.