Mark D. Jordan, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Religion, Emory University
(2004 - 2005 Sewanee Itinerary)
Mark Jordan has been a member of the Emory faculty since 1999. Before coming to Emory, he taught at the University of Notre Dame and other Catholic universities. Trained as a historian of Christian thought, he teaches a range of courses from introductory Catholicism and Christian visual culture to sexual ethics and theological method. His academic interests focus on Christian teachings about body and incarnation, the power of theological rhetoric, and the place of religion in lesbian and gay communities. Jordan wrote his dissertation on Thomas Aquinas in Spain as a Fulbright scholar. In 1996, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to work on Christian rhetoric and moral controversy.His books include:
The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (University of Chicago Press, 1997), awarded the 1999 John Boswell Prize for lesbian and gay history;
The Silence of Sodom : Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism ( University of Chicago Press, 2000), a Lambda Literary Award finalist in religion and spirituality;
The Ethics of Sex (Blackwell, 2002);
Telling Truths in Church: Scandal, Flesh, and Christian Speech (Beacon, 2003), and
Blessing Same-Sex Unions: The Perils of Queer Romance and the Confusions of Christian Marriage ( University of Chicago Press, April 2005).Also forthcoming are an anthology of Jewish and Christian essays on blessing unions (Princeton 2005) and a book on Thomas Aquinas, theological writing, and church authority (Blackwell 2005).
Mark will be speaking at the University of the South in 2005 on the following dates and topics:
January 27-28: "Issuing Vocation Cards"
February 17-18: "Writing Christian Theology in a Time of Polemic"
March 3-4: "Is Sexual Orientation a Calling?"
March 31-April 1: "Violence, Diversity, Vocation"