Social Fabric or Glitter Bombs?

Abstract

Abstract This essay raises the question of how to understand social differences, including those indexed by trans, queer, antiracist, and feminist studies, as both intersectional and incommensurable. Through an analysis of how oscillation between the poles of binary oppositions works to reinforce hegemony and weave different issues into a hegemonic social fabric, the essay considers how methods and metaphors for trans and queer studies in religion can create counter-hegemonic possibilities. Specifically, in moving from coherent ideas of “the social” as represented by different social relations woven into a hegemonic social fabric to queer and trans ideas of moving and shimmering social relations that might touch across disjunctions, can trans and queer studies in religion contribute to social possibilities in a revolutionary hue?