How have religious practices, identities, beliefs, institutions and politics shaped the history of sexuality?

NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality (www.notchesblog.com) invites submissions on histories of sexuality and religion. We welcome blog posts (1000-1500 words); interviews with scholars, archivists, and activists; as well as submissions to our “Archives of Desire” series in which historians reflect on specific primary sources and their value in researching or teaching histories of sexuality.

Possible questions for exploration include:

  • What discursive and material contexts constructed the relationship between religion and sexuality?
  • In what social institutions did religious and sexual experiences and ideas intersect?
  • How have sexual and religious identities been constructed in relation or opposition to each other?
  • In what ways did sexual subcultures and communities engage with mainstream and marginal religions? How did religious groups create alternative sexual subcultures?
  • How did religious authorities, ideas and institutions respond to or shape sexual values, meanings, practices and identities?

Style and image guidelines:

  • Submissions should be written for a non-specialist and international audience. Therefore, avoid jargon and use hyperlinks – not footnotes – to clarify terms or concepts that may be unfamiliar to a general readership.
  • Include at least one relevant image for which you have obtained permission and caption your image with clear attribution information. We welcome your use of a range of sources such as movies or sound files.
  • Include a short hyperlinked author bio and photo with your submission
  • For more information see www.notchesblog.com/write-for-notches

Send submissions to Neil J. Young by December 1, 2015. Submissions from outside North America are especially welcome. All submissions to NOTCHES will undergo an internal peer-review process. Proposals and queries are most welcome.

NOTCHES is an international, collaborative, open-access, peer-reviewed history of sexuality blog. With over 200,000 views, NOTCHES is at the center of international conversations about teaching and researching the history of sexuality.


Neil J. Young is an editor at Notches and specializes in post-1945 religion and politics. His book, We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics, will be published by Oxford University Press in November 2015. Young’s research has appeared in the Journal of Policy History, American Quarterly, and in Axel R. Schäfer’s Evangelicals and the 1960s. He writes frequently for publications, including the New York Times, Slate, and the Huffington Post. He tweets from @NeilJYoung17



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NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.notchesblog.com.

For permission to publish any NOTCHES post in whole or in part please contact the editors at NotchesBlog@gmail.com

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