Sacred Clowns and Settler Colonials: Colonial Discourse and Queer Resistance in the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

• In Event: Queer Modes of Resistance

Abstract

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence engage in a form of ludic, performative activism that I term “serious parody,” simultaneously camping and laying claim to the role of the nun. Members of this largely white, largely non-Native order also often describe themselves as “sacred clowns,” invoking the queer, non-Native cooptation and rewriting of Native histories and erasure of Native presents critiqued by Scott Morgensen (2011). Relying on Morgensen’s analysis of the Radical Faeries, a group with significant influence on the Sisters, this paper explores the roles of and possible resistance to settler colonialism in this queer activist organization.

Presenter

• Melissa M. Wilcox, University of California, Riverside