Archive for March, 2011

Fourth Annual Boswell Lecture: “The Rainbow Connection”

April 28, 2011 at 5:30pm to 8:00pm

CLGS is pleased to welcome the Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng to the PSR campus on Thursday evening, April 28, 2011, to deliver the fourth annual John E. Boswell Lecture. Join us that evening at 5:30pm for a reception in the PSR Chapel; the lecture will begin at 6:30pm. This event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Cheng’s lecture — “The Rainbow Connection: Bridging Asian American and Queer Theologies — will help to mark and celebrate an emerging queer religious scholarship among Asian Pacific Islander communities.

As Dr. Cheng describes it:
“Rainbows have long served as bridges between different worlds: heaven and earth; east and west; queer and non-queer.  In this lecture, I will suggest that the emergence of LGBTQ Asian Pacific Islander theological voices in recent years has created a hybrid space – or bridge – between Asian American and queer theologies.  It is in this ‘rainbow space’ that previously-silenced connections between sexualities, gender identities, and races can emerge, and thus challenge and transform the dominant theological discourse.”

The Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng is the Assistant Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He holds a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. from Union Theological Seminary in New York, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and a B.A. from Yale College.  Patrick is a contributor to the Huffington Post on LGBT theological issues, and he is an ordained minister with the Metropolitan Community Churches.  He is the founder and coordinator of Queer Asian Spirit, a world-wide online community of LGBT people of Asian descent and their allies who are interested in issues of spirituality and religion.  Patrick is the author of Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology (New York: Seabury Books, 2011).  He has contributed chapters to The Queer Bible Commentary as well as the second edition of Sexuality and the Sacred.  His writings have been published in Semeia, Spiritus, and the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Patrick lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his husband Michael, and they have been together for almost twenty years.  For more information, see Patrick’s website.

Click here for more on emerging queer API religions scholars.

Click here for more on the John E. Boswell Lectureship at CLGS.

Event Information:
http://www.clgs.org/events/fourth-annual-boswell-lecture-rainbow-connection

EQARS Colloquium – April 29, 2011

April 29, 2011 at 12:30pm to 2:00pm

On the day following the Fourth Annual Boswell Lecture with the Rev. Dr. Patrick Cheng, the Emerging Queer Asian Religion Scholars (EQARS) cohort, convened by the Asian Pacific Islander Roundtable Project at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS), is proud to organize a groundbreaking interdisciplinary conversation among leading scholars from the fields of sexuality studies, comparative ethnic studies, and theological studies.

These scholars will examine how the queer Asian religious experiences can enrich their own research.

This event is free and open to public. Join us on Friday, April 29, 2011, in the Mudd Building, Room 100 on the PSR campus.

Colloquium Panel:

•Dr. Gina Masequesmay, Associate Professor, Asian American Studies, California State University Northridge, CA
•Dr. Jaideep Singh, Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies Sabharwal Chair in Sikh and Punjabi Studies California State University East Bay
•Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng, Assistant Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA
•Rev. Dr. Jay E. Johnson, Senior Director, Academic Research and Resources, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA
•Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Leung, Coordinating Minister, Asian Pacific Islander Roundtable Project, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, Berkeley, CA

http://www.clgs.org/events/eqars-colloquium

Asian and Pacific Islander Roundtable

The Asian and Pacific Islander Roundtable Project envisions the emergence of coalitions of API LGBTQ and API allies across the country that affirms the dignity and spiritual wholeness of API-LGBTQ people of faith.

In order to empower and resource such coalitions, we have created online listings of supportive API clergy, leaders, scholars, and of API religious/cultural resources. A curriculum that integrates sexuality, ethnicity and religion for API community is forthcoming.

The API Roundtable Project currently coordinates a group of emerging API scholars of queer religions. It has also been coordinating the Network on Religion and Justice for Asian American and Pacific Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people (NRJ-API-LGBT) since 2005.