Sex and the Sacred: Queering Black Performing Arts in Cape Town, South Africa

“性与神圣”是一个跨学科的项目，探索南非黑人酷儿创意艺术家在工作和生活中的性和神圣。通过使用神圣的概念，该项目允许在制度化的宗教和信仰的背景之外研究宗教/灵性，并探索神圣是如何在艺术和日常实践中体现和表现的。这将通过对开普敦十二位黑人酷儿表演艺术家生活经历的民族志探索来完成。该项目特别感兴趣的是探索表演艺术在（重新）构建南非酷儿叙事方面的潜力。在一个国家的背景下，这是很重要的，因为宗教被用来支持反酷儿的态度和话语，但也激发了对彩虹酷儿乌托邦的梦想，并激发了对此的行动主义。表演艺术长期以来一直是南非黑人抵抗运动的中心，在当前的酷儿抵抗运动中也同样重要。因此，该项目也旨在将黑人理论化为一个重要的交叉点，它塑造了性和神圣是如何协商的，并分析了表演艺术如何作为酷儿黑人意识的场所。《性与神圣》对于（重新）想象这个国家的政治和社会秩序以及酷儿的未来有着巨大的潜力。这是一项极具创新性和广泛性的研究，为越来越多的文献做出了贡献，这些文献对后殖民时期非洲酷儿的霸权观念进行了细微的区分。该项目将经验丰富的研究员（ER）的深入知识与导师在宗教和酷儿非洲研究方面的理论和方法专业知识以及利兹大学的合作网络相结合，以区分ER和主持人在宗教和酷儿性行为的变革性学术工作中作为创新的，交叉的领导者。

"Sex and the Sacred" is an interdisciplinary project that explores sexuality and the sacred in the work and lives of Black queer creative artists in South Africa. By using the concept of the sacred this project allows for religion/spirituality to be studied outside of the context of institutionalized religion and belief and to explore how the sacred becomes embodied and is performed in art as well as everyday practices. This will be done through an ethnographic exploration of the lived experiences of twelve Black queer performing artists in Cape Town. The project is particularly interested in exploring the potential of the performing arts for (re)constructing the narrative of queerness in South Africa. This is significant in a national context where religion is used to both, prop up anti-queer attitudes and discourses, but also inspire dreams for a rainbow queer utopia and motivates activism towards this. The performing arts have long been central in South African histories of Black resistance and remains equally significant in current queer resistance movements. The project thus also aims to theorise Blackness as an important intersection that shapes how sexuality and the sacred is negotiated and to analyse how the performing arts functions as a site for a queer Black consciousness. "Sex and the Sacred" holds great potential for (re)imagining political and social orders and queer futurity in the country. It is a highly innovative and extensive study, contributing to a growing body of literature that nuances hegemonic ideas of what it means to be queer in postcolonial Africa. This project pairs the in-depth knowledge of the Experienced Researcher (ER) with the theoretical and methodological expertise in religious and queer African studies of the supervisor, as well as the collaboration networks of the University of Leeds, to distinguish the ER and the host as innovative, intersectional leaders in transformative academic work on religion and queer sexuality.