CTS Welcomes Guest Lecturer & Author Melissa M. Wilcox To The Annual Castañeda-Jennings Lecture

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Kim Schultz, Interim Director of Communications
EMAIL: [email protected]

CHICAGO – APRIL 2, 2021 – Chicago Theological Seminary welcomes guest lecturer and author, Dr. Melissa M. Wilcox to the annual Castañeda-Jennings Lecture and Award. This year, we will also celebrate the late Professor Emeritus, Dr. Ted Jennings. Dr. Wilcox will present a lecture entitled: “On Holy (Cruising) Ground, in Sacred (Sub) Space: Beyond the Homonormative and Cisnormative Study of Religion”. Wilcox explores what it will mean for the study of religion as a whole to fully embrace the outcomes of lived religion methods and thereby to move beyond a heteronormative, homonormative, and cisnormative model of the sacred.

Melissa M. Wilcox is Professor and Holstein Family and Community Chair of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and specializes in the study of gender, sexuality, and religion in the Global North/Global West. Dr. Wilcox’s books include Coming Out in Christianity: Religion, Identity, and Community; Sexuality and the World’s Religions; Queer Women and Religious Individualism; Religion in Today’s World: Global Issues, Sociological Perspectives; and Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody; Queer Religiosities: An Introduction to Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion; and (with Nina Hoel and Liz Wilson) the Religion, the Body, and Sexuality. Dr. Wilcox’s current research is on spirituality in leather and BSDM communities.

The Gilberto Castañeda Award was established in 1994 in loving memory of Gilberto Castañeda, the “adopted” son of Dr. Theodore Jennings and Rev. Dr. Ronna Case. Gilberto first met Case in California, where she worked to develop mission congregations among undocumented workers from Mexico. Gilberto “found the love of God so compelling that he not only became a member but also a leader in the new congregations of young people” that were being established by Rev. Case. In 1994, at the age of 29, he died of complications from AIDS.

The event is free and open to the public. It will be held on Thursday, April 22 at 6PM CT. Please register for the event and link here: https://www.ctschicago.edu/castaneda-jennings