This paper explores Rabih Alameddine’s debut novel, Koolaids, from a queer a/theological perspective. It has been read as portraying an exilic in-betweenness and this paper looks at how this indeterminacy manifests in the text’s relationships to sexuality and Scripture. It argues that Alameddine dissects the stability of sexual norms and desires, and effectively queeries all compulsions to identify. It also discusses how Alameddine rereads and returns to Scripture, whilst rebuking blind faith in anything, and suggests that whilst his own relationship (...) to theologies may be non-committal and ambiguous, the text embodies and exposes multiple possibilities for reconciling queerness of all kinds with Divine and self acceptance. It concludes with the suggestion that Koolaids can be read as offering myriad resources for theological reflection, resources that are at once a/theological, queerly positioned, and ever-open to diverse theological dreamscapes. (shrink)

This book addresses the challenges of living together after empire in many post-colonial cities. It is organized in two sections. The first section focuses on efforts by people of multiple faiths to live together within their contexts, including such efforts within a neighborhood in urban Manchester; the array of attempts at creating multi-faith spaces for worship across the globe; and initiatives to commemorate divisive conflict together in Northern Ireland. The second section utilizes particular postcolonial methods to illuminate pressing issues within (...) specific contexts—including women’s leadership in an indigenous denomination in the variegated African landscape, and baptism and discipleship among Dalit communities in India. In the context of growing multiculturalism in the West, this volume offers a postcolonial theological resource, challenging the epistemologies in the Western academy. (shrink)

Real ladies do not travel - or so it was once said. This collection of women's travel writing dispels this notion by revealing that there are few corners of the world that have not been visited by women travellers. Jane Robinson takes us on an exhilarating journey through sixteen centuries of travel writing, in the company of Isabella Bird, Karen Blixen, Christina Dodwell, Jan Morris, Dervla Murphy, Freya Stark, Rebecca West, and many more.