The Feminist Sexual Ethics Project at Brandeis University (headed by the formidable Bernadette Brooten) is sponsoring a conference at Brandeis called Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacy , October 15-16. It is free and open to the public.
Some of the topics for discussion include:
What Is Slavery’s Religious and Sexual Legacy?
The Purchase of His Money: Slavery and the Ethics of Jewish Marriage
Biblical Debates over Slavery
Reparations for Slavery
“She shall not go free as male slaves do”: The Female Debt-Slave in the Hebrew Bible
“As if she were his wife”: Slavery and Sexual Ethics in Late Medieval Spain
Habits of Slavery in Early Christianity
Gender, Slavery, and Technology: The Shaping of the Early Christian Moral Imagination
Anti-Miscegenation Statutes: Roman Catholic and Protestant Theologies of Marriage and Race
Abstinence-Plus Sex Education: The Best Model for Free Citizens
Slavery and Sexual Ethics in Islam
he Same-Sex Marriage Debate in the African American Churches: An Historical Perspective
In Search of Sally Hemings: Slavery and Sexual Agency in the History of the United States
The Ku Klux Klan and Sexual Terror
In other words, they’re tackling a lot of hard, important stuff. If I were on the East Coast now, I’d be there. If you manage to make it, let me know how it goes?