From Jesus to J-Setting details the experiences of Black people with diverse sexual identities from ages eighteen to thirty years old. The work examines how the intersection of racial, sexual, gender, and religious identities influence self-expression and lifestyle modalities in this understudied, often hidden population, by exploring how racial, sexual, and religious dynamics play out.
Voices in the book illuminate a continuum of decisions—from more traditional (i.e., Black church participation) to nontraditional (i.e., dancing known as J-Setting and spirituality)—and the corresponding beliefs, values, and experiences that emerge under the ever-present specter of racism, homophobia, heterosexism, and for many, ageism.
Drawing upon sociology, sociology of religion, black studies, queer studies, inequality, stratification, and cultural studies, Sandra Lynn Barnes explores the everyday lives of young Black people with fluid sexual identities and their everyday forms of individual as well as collective resistance.
About the Author :
SANDRA LYNN BARNES is the C.V. Starr Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Brown University. Her previous books include Kings of Mississippi: Race, Religious Education, and the Making of a Middle-Class Black Family in the Segregated South (with Benita Blanford-Jones); Empowering Black Youth of Promise: Education and Socialization in the Village-minded Black Church (with Anne Streaty-Wimberly); Re-Positioning Race: Prophetic Research in a Post-Racial Obama Age (coedited with Zandria F. Robinson and Earl Wright II); and Live Long and Prosper: How Black Megachurches Address HIV/AIDS and Poverty in the Age of Prosperity Theology.
Review :
From Jesus to J-Setting is a new take on religion, spirituality, and BIPOC LGBTQIA communities. I have not seen anything similar.
From Jesus to J-Setting offers an innovative exploration of how BMSM embrace religion and spirituality, wrestling with the question of what can understanding BMSM’s connection to spirituality do to help religious and other institutions better support this population.
From Jesus to J-Setting provides a unique glimpse into how young Black Queer individuals navigate their sexual identities as they relate to religious and spiritual practices in general and the Black Church in particular. . . . Utilizing seminal texts from Queer Theory, Sociology of Religion, and Black Feminism, Barnes has created a compelling and nuanced study that shows how all these seemingly disparate avenues of scholarship are interconnected and so are the lives of the people that exist at the intersections of them. This text is undoubtedly relevant to the modern trends of religious affiliation we see in the Black church.
