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Post-Secular Queer

Norman Jones is an assistant professor in the Department of English on the Mansfield campus. He specializes in twentieth-century American literature and sexuality studies. An affiliate of the Center for the Study of Religion, his research explores intersections of the sacred and the secular, focusing especially on the vexed and complicated relationship between queer subjectivities and Christianity.

Professor Jones recently published Gay and Lesbian Historical Fiction: Sexual Mystery and Post-Secular Narrative (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), which argues not only that this highly popular type of historical fiction should be taken more seriously by historians but also that such fictions implicitly work to ameliorate divisions between Christianity and homosexuality. Gay and lesbian historical fictions model ways of approaching sexual and historical mystery not as a threat to understanding but as its ground. These fictions thus implicitly undermine the supposed dichotomy between secular and sacred ways of knowing, thereby expanding the resources for ethical debate about homosexuality.

Developing this argument further, Jones is currently completing several essays that explain its relevance to diverse audiences. One such essay, forthcoming in the winter 2009 issue of Christianity and Literature, argues that scholars researching the intersections of Christianity and literature stand to benefit from engaging more fully with sexuality studies. Another essay focuses on establishing the concept of the "post-secular queer" as a useful heuristic for sexuality studies scholars. A third essay takes a turn into social science: an empirical study undertaken in collaboration with Dr. Philip J. Mazzocco (Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology), this project demonstrates that the recognition of parallels between Christian conversion stories and gay and lesbian coming-out narratives can lead to prejudice reduction.

Jones is also developing two future book projects. One is a collection of essays by prominent scholars addressing the cultural and literary influence of the King James Version of the Bible (KJV), to be published during the 400th anniversary of the KJV in 2011 (he is also helping to plan a conference on the KJV to be held at OSU that fall). The collection explores various aspects of how the distinctive language, cadences, and cultural position of the KJV have influenced specific historical periods and traditions from Reformation England, to nineteenth-century British colonialism, to contemporary African American literature and culture. Jones's second monograph project focuses on audiences and the reception histories of stories: this project explores the post-secular erotics of contemporary "fan" communities.