Sex and the City (of God): is sex forfeited or fulfilled in Augustine's resurrection of body?
Reading Augustine’s hypothetical description of resurrection bodies through Freud and his critics’ construction of "sexuality," I suggest that Augustine’s mature writings on the resurrection include some-thing like post-Freudian ideas of sexuality, even though the concept itself was not part of Augustine’s conceptual universe. Historicizing "sexuality" frees the concept for revision so that sexuality can be thought of as embedded in social assumptions and arrangements rather than individual, as part rather than essence of the self, and as gendered rather than universal. Collecting and composing hints and clues scattered in Augustine’s sermons and treatises, I sketch a post-Augustinian proposal for an ideal sexuality that is not incompatible with, but extends, elaborates, and refines Augustine’s description of resurrection bodies.
Miles
Margaret R
MR
Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.
D005619:Freudian Theory / Q000266:history; D005783:Gender Identity; D049673:History, 20th Century; D007206:Individuality; D010684:Philosophy / Q000266:history; D012067:Religion / Q000266:history; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D019529:Sexuality / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D012919:Social Behavior; D012924:Social Conditions / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D012933:Social Identification