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Syllabus: Genders and Sexualities of Early Christians

This syllabus by Julie Kelto Lillis, Ph.D. is winner of the LGBTQ-RAN's Educational Resource Prize in 2024.

Course: Genders and Sexualities of Early Christians

Course description

Early Christian texts offer familiar and unfamiliar patterns, norms, and possibilities for the aspects of human life that people today call gender and sexuality. This course examines the pertinent categories and social and theological logic of Christians in distant cultures by exploring a variety of ancient sources, taking into account challenging issues raised by feminist and LGBTQ+ historians. Questions to investigate include: Was gender permanent or fluid? What kinds of sexual relationships did Christians consider acceptable, and why? How did the rise of clerical and ascetic roles bend boundaries and create new possibilities? What are the risks and benefits of using current categories to study premodern sources, and how might premodern sources provide fresh perspective or new inspiration for reasoning about gender and sexuality today? Our investigations will span material from the days of Junia and Paul (mid-first century) to the period of Justinian and Theodora (sixth century) and will draw from multiple disciplines.

Course learning goals

Knowledge-based goals: Students taking this course will build/deepen their knowledge of…

  • diverse forms and expressions of Christian faith in ancient contexts;
  • the various gendered and sexual expressions that were possible among early Christians, and the challenges of studying ancient gender and sexuality;
  • social and theological implications of this variety in the past and today.

Skill-based goals: Students taking this course will build/strengthen their skills in…

  • analyzing, interpreting, and forming arguments about primary sources;
  • grasping and describing the relevance of social and historiographical issues, past and present;
  • discussion participation and presenting information to broad audiences.

This course is designed to meet curricular goals of the Master of Arts in Social Justice, Master of Arts in Religion, and Master of Divinity degree programs.

Contents

Course Syllabus
Sample Assignment: Resource Page 2
Sample Assignment: Mid-Semester Paper
Sample Assignment: Resource Page 3