Queer Niddah Book in Progress: (Tentative) Table of Contents

Hello, subscribers! This is a paid-subscribers-only look at the current work I’m doing to begin my book on queer niddah (please consider a paid subscription! $8/month!). In pitching a book (to fellowships, publishers, etc), an “annotated table of contents” is an important piece, and so this is my current tentative version. I’d love to hear from you (directly via email or in the comments) - what jumps out at you? What is missing? In particular, I am thinking about how to move the pleasure piece from the last chapter to a potentially more holistic frame for the book. 

Chapter One: What

This chapter will lay the theological foundations for the rest of the book by asking, “what is niddah ABOUT?” The laws of niddah come out of a unique overlap of sexual regulations and the halachot of tumah and taharah, most simply translated as purity and impurity. Both of these framings can stigmatize menstruation, and tumah-based and sex-based approaches are theologically divergent from one another. The French Tosafist the Bechor Shor offers an alternative view by suggesting that niddah observance can be a parallel ritual to circumcision. Drawing on this insight, this chapter will suggest that niddah can point us to a model of embodied covenant. Niddah’s unique position at the intersection of sexual regulation and concern with ritual purity allows us to imagine how we might bring God into our relationships with people, and vice versa.