List of Figures viii
In the Lobby ix
Part I Introduction 1
1 Desiring Bodies 3
Part II Cavities 33
2 Seeing in the Dark 35
3 Visionary Screens 65
Part III Copulations 103
4 Alien Sex 105
5 God’s Sex 133
6 Sex Slaves 173
7 Want of Family 201
Part IV Consolations 227
8 The Man Who Fell to Earth 229
9 The Garden 257
Index 295
Gerard Loughlin is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He is a founding co-editor of the journal Theology & Sexuality.
"Absolutely brilliant." Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University
“Alien Sex is part of Blackwell’s Challenges in Contemporary
Theology series, a series that has produced some of the most
creative theological thinking in recent years. Loughlin’s book is
no exception… Loughlin’s innovative method of dealing with his
material is in line with the theological approach taken but also
connects with the cinematic perspective. His subject matter,
however, covers a wider range of interests than film and theology
and delves into the realms of art history and literature. …
Loughlin’s Alien Sex is an extremely interesting and important
work.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion
"Alien Sex presents Gerard Loughlin's incarnational theology in a
compelling mantle of film theory... The book's three parts...
display continual jump cuts between film texts, theology, and
philosophy with dizzying effect, but Loughlin keeps readers from
potential frustration through fascinating readings of a wide array
of films... he works wonders with eclectic and appropriate
juxtapositions of theological and scriptural texts." Journal of
Religion
"Alien Sex refuses, without coyness, to be quite the book promised
by its subtitle. It is the more dazzling for the refusal... Alien
Sex is rather an exercise in writing about incarnation under the
present regime of mass images. It inter-cuts traditional Christian
discourses with selections from recent films in hopes of
recognizing holy bodies... Loughlin's book is not theology and
film; it is theology after film - theology simply and splendidly...
The final effect - despite and because of its brilliance - raises
questions." Studies in Christian Ethics
“It is frankly difficult to see how a book with a title like this
could fail to be interesting and Loughlin does not disappoint… [It
is] difficult to imagine anyone other than Loughlin bringing
together Christian tradition and pop culture in such a provocative
and endlessly inventive way… Loughlin’s work is an important
revisionary reading of the role of sexuality in both theological
tradition and secular modernity… I would nominate this brilliant
synthesis of theology, film and cultural theory as my book of the
year within the field [of religion].” The Year’s Work in Critical
and Cultural Theory (2005)
"Loughlin envisages a complete remodelling of traditional Christian
ideas on the place and importance of sexual activity in life...
Loughlin's subject will increasingly preoccupy intellectually,
socially and morally adventurous Christians, and there will be
changes in the Church's attitudes to sex in the decades to come."
Times Literary Supplement
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