Farewell Prof Heleen Zorgdrager: From Paramaribo to Pokrovsk
What is the state of gender and sexuality in interaction with structural violence and political, ideological, and theological power? How do I work with the term gender, and what do I mean by political theology? These questions lay at the foundation of the farewell address delivered yesterday by Prof. Dr. Heleen Zorgdrager during the dies natalis of the PThU. She presented a proposal for a liberating political theology with explicit attention to gender.
Two case studies
In her farewell address, Heleen Zorgdrager discussed gender and sexuality in interaction with structural violence, political power, and ideological and theological authority. She presented two case studies from her ongoing research: Paramaribo (Suriname) and Pokrovsk (Ukraine). 'Both cities represent focal points in my work. Paramaribo is connected to the NWO project Church and Slavery, in which researchers from the PThU, VU, and the University of Curaçao collaborate. Pokrovsk, a frontline city in eastern Ukraine, represents my twenty-year involvement with Ukraine and sources of Ukrainian resilience and resistance. Geographically and historically these places differ greatly, but they share one experience: both have been shaped by imperial power and by histories of decolonial resistance.'
Christian religion as a factor
In both case studies, she examines how Christian religion functions as a factor within imperial power structures. At the same time, gender and sexuality are central. 'Discourses on gender and sexuality, and especially the mobilization of affects such as desire and disgust, turn out to be driving forces in political theologies that construct a superior "we" in opposition to an inferior "other".' In a historical case study, she examines how a committee of Dutch ministers thought about the sexuality of enslaved people. 'This provides exemplary insight into patterns of exclusion based on gender and race, and into how these patterns continue to shape dominant white Protestant theology.' In a contemporary case study, she investigates the role of gender and religious symbolism in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. 'Geopolitical imaginaries on the Russian side are supported by images of ‘masculine’ strength versus "feminine" weakness and decay. From which sources do Ukrainians draw, and how is religious symbolism—particularly around Mary, the Mother of God—activated in their resistance? What contours of incarnational theology emerge in the context of their existential struggle for survival?'
Download the address
The full address is now available for download.
Header image: Maarten Wisse
