19/04/2024

Michael Toy

Queer theology, as Elizabeth Stuart noted back in 1997, has been largely focused on the question of how well the queer couple and family can look like the heterosexual nuclear family. “The debate about homosexuality in the churches is so stale and repetitious because it is not really about homosexuality. It is about heterosexuality and ho w far the mantle of heterosexuality can be flung - what are its borders?”

(1997, p. 187). Recent pushes in queer theory and queer theology have pushed at these boundaries, bringing critiques to the entire nuclear family structure as a colonial, patriarchal, and heteronormative project. While these queer ideas, behaviours, and reflections stand outside and against normative relationship ethics, this paper explores digital theology as a resource for rendering such queer practices legible within a Christian cont ext. Using Phillips, Schiefelbein - Guerrero, and Kurlberg’s (2019) third definition of digital theology, this presentation offers a theological meditation on one alternative to the heteromonogamous structure, that is, non -monogamous relationality. Building on the computational technique of so-called parallel processing, this paper investigates how the material limitations of time, space, and energy might map from the microchip onto non-monogamous relationship structures. As embodied creatures with limits on attention, time, and energy, this exploratory paper investigates what the comparison to the limits of parallel processing in computation provides for queer Christians looking to build ethical relationships.

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Iona Curtius - Cyborgs vs the Metaverse