2022-23 Virginia Ramey Mollenkott Award Presentation
Wallace D. Best, Ph.D On March 8, 2023, LGBTQ-RAN collaborated with Union Theological Seminary on this in-person gathering to present the 2022-23 Virginia Ramey Mollenkott Award to Wallace D. Best, Ph.D. Best is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of Religion and African American Studies and the Director of the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University. His paper, “Everybody Knew He Was ‘That Way;’ Chicago’s Clarence H. Cobbs, American Religion & Sexuality During the Post World War II Period,” was selected by the review jury to receive this unique award for outstanding research and scholarship in LGBTQ religious history. Read more about Best’s research and the Mollenkott Award in this press release.
Other speakers at this event included:
Keegan Osinski, the librarian for Theology and Ethics at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity Library. She has a B.A. degree in Philosophy & Theology, a Master’s of Library Science, and a Master’s of Theological Studies with a certificate in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality. Osinki is the author of Queering Wesley, Queering the Church.
The Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng, Visiting Professor of Anglican Studies at Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. An Episcopal priest, Fr. Cheng is the author of three books on queer theology, including Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology (2011). One of the first books on LGBTQ+ theology that he read was Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, which was co-authored by Virginia Ramey Mollenkott.
This is the first year that LGBTQ-RAN’s annual award for papers has been named in memory of Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. This event also included memorial tributes to the courageous witness and scholarship of this ground-breaking lesbian-feminist-trans theologian.
This event was jointly hosted by the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network and Union Theological Seminary.
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Chicago | Author/editor | Trans activism | Pentecostal | Black | Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Inc. (MSCC) | Illinois