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Susan Henking

Susan Henking (Ph.D., 1988, University of Chicago) works in religion and psychological studies, and more widely in religion and the social sciences. She is particularly interested in feminist approaches and in links between religion and sexuality. Her courses are cross listed with a variety of interdisciplinary programs and she is actively involved in Women's Studies as well as Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Studies. She won the Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992.

Professor Henking can often be found teaching:

Rel 109 Imagining American Religion
Rel 263 Religion and Social Theory
Rel 267 Psychologies of Religion
Rel 269 Therapy, Myth and Ritual
Rel 281 Unspoken Worlds: Women, Culture and Religion
Rel 283 Que(e)rying Religious Studies
Rel 360 Reading Theory in Religious Studies
Rel 365 Loss of Certainty
Rel 381 Reading Feminism in Religious Studies
Rel 464 God, Gender, and the Unconscious

Professor Henking can also be found teaching Women's Studies 100, Introduction to Women's Studies, sometimes with Professor Jodi Dean of the Department of Political Science. In the past, Henking has team taught with David Craig of the Chemistry Department.

These courses and others can be found in the department course listings.

Professor Henking has published in the history of American sociology, cultural analyses of feminist theology and of religious representations in AIDS related memoirs. She also writes on pedagogy in religious studies and at the intersection of religious studies and lesbian/gay/queer studies. She is editor of the Teaching Religious Studies series of the American Academy of Religion, a description of which can be found here.

She has also published the following works:

"Difficult Knowledges: Gender, Sexuality, Religion," Spotlight on Teaching, October 2006.

"Does (the History of ) Religion and Psychological Studies Have a Subject?" in Mapping Religion and Psychological Studies, eds. Diane Jonte-Pace and William Parsons. (New York: Routledge, 2000).

"Protestant Religious Experience and the Rise of American Sociology," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 28(4): 325-339.

Susan Henking and Gary David Comstock, eds. Que(e)rying Religion: A Critical Anthology
(New York: Continuum, 1997)

"Rejected, Reclaimed, Renamed: Mary Daly on Psychology and Religion," Journal of Psychology and Theology 21(3): 199-207.

"The Open Secret: Dilemmas of Advocacy in the (Religious Studies) Classroom." Pp. 245-259 in Advocacy in the Classroom: Propaganda versus Engagement ed. Patricia Meyers Spacks (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996).

"Proselytizing and Pedagogy" Originally published in Religious Studies News 11(February 1996): p. 8

"Religion, Religious Studies and Higher Education: Into the 21st Century," Religious Studies Review 30(2,3): 129-136.

"Who is the Public Intellectual? Identity, Marginality, and the Religious Studies Scholar." ARC: Journal of the Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University 28 (2000): 159-171.

Multimedia:

On May 17, Henking was interviewed by Tish Perlman, who hosts the radio show "Out of Bounds" on WEOS. You may listen to the audio online.