Reading Queer A/theology into Rabih Alameddine’s Koolaids

This paper explores Rabih Alameddine’s debut novel, Koolaids, from a queer a/theological perspective. It has been read as portraying an exilic in-betweenness and this paper looks at how this indeterminacy manifests in the text’s relationships to sexuality and Scripture. It argues that Alameddine dis...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Shannahan, Dervla (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2011
In: Feminist theology
Year: 2011, Volume: 19, Issue: 2, Pages: 129-142
Further subjects:B Queer Theology
B feminist literary criticism
B Queer Theory
B Alameddine
B a / theology
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:This paper explores Rabih Alameddine’s debut novel, Koolaids, from a queer a/theological perspective. It has been read as portraying an exilic in-betweenness and this paper looks at how this indeterminacy manifests in the text’s relationships to sexuality and Scripture. It argues that Alameddine dissects the stability of sexual norms and desires, and effectively queeries all compulsions to identify. It also discusses how Alameddine rereads and returns to Scripture, whilst rebuking blind faith in anything, and suggests that whilst his own relationship to theologies may be non-committal and ambiguous, the text embodies and exposes multiple possibilities for reconciling queerness of all kinds with Divine and self acceptance. It concludes with the suggestion that Koolaids can be read as offering myriad resources for theological reflection, resources that are at once a/theological, queerly positioned, and ever-open to diverse theological dreamscapes.
ISSN:1745-5189
Contains:Enthalten in: Feminist theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0966735010383800