Fields of Study
- Anthropology of Religion
- Global Christianities
- Religion, Culture & Politics
Areas of Interest
- Christianity in North America
- Queer Religion
- Queer Theology
- Ethnography and Lived Religion
- Queer and Trans Studies
- Critical Theory
Biography
Emily Dumais (she/they) is a SSHRC-funded MA student in the DSR. She graduated with a BA in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (ancient stream), Religion, and History from the University of Toronto in 2024. Their project asks what it means in theory versus practice for a church to claim they are "open and affirming." This will involve opening a new ethnographic field with a comparative approach by considering what "open and affirming" means to congregations of different denominations in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). This project is in response to the widespread myth that religion and queerness are antithetical. Besides asking what "open and affirming" means broadly for the congregations and its congregants, this study will also consider how queer Christians navigate their liminal positionality between two groups (queer and Christian) that neither fully accepts them. As an activist-academic, Emily's research aims to challenge the pervasive myth of incompatibility and contribute to reconciliation by understanding the lived experiences of queer Christians.