Drawing on her own research into a contemporary South Indian practice in which girls are married to a goddess, as well as other ethnographies and histories, this talk takes up the question of sex in the house of religion. It traces a genealogy of the term sacred marriage as a category of comparative religion and considers the ways sex and religion have been produced as discrete from each other. Religious and sexual propriety are tied together, it argues, and religious practices or scenes organize, normalize, and naturalize forms of sexual conduct and misconduct thereby producing their possibilities and powers.
Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.