Queer Icons: Pasolini’s Perverse Religiosities

Purchase professor Shaka McGlotten will be joined by panelists Brian Paccione and Johanna Markert will discuss issues raised by Pier Paolo Pasolini: Subversive Prophet. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s films are saturated with religious iconography shaped by his Catholic upbringing and the profound influence it had upon him. This iconography is refracted and distorted by the artist’s queerness. Saints and sinners abound and they are treated reverently even, or perhaps especially, when they are seductive or profane. Christianity for Pasolini is not the abstract promise of redemption nor the abject shame of sin; instead, it offers a rich archive to explore the ambivalence of belief and the limits of desire. Queer Icons: Pasolini’s Perverse Religiousities explores the intersection of the filmmaker’s homosexuality and his complex relationship to religiousity. The event will screen highlights from his films and will be followed by a roundtable with Shaka McGlotten, Brian Paccione, and Johanna Markert