M. Maria Walhout
Primary page content
M. Maria Walhout's MPhil/PhD Art research project
Indecent/ing tongues
My practice-led research project examines the contemporary charismatic Christian prayer practice of glossolalia ('speaking in tongues') through a queer/trans lens on illegibility. The project's title borrows from Marcella Althaus-Reid's 'Indecent Theology', in which 'indecenting' is proposed as a method of opening up theology to more imprecise and mutable modes and returning it to the authenticity of everyday life experience.
![](/media/images-by-section/departments/art/phd-students/pentecost.jpg)
'Pentecost', El Greco, ca. 1600 (detail)
Using autobiographic, theological, performative and poetic modes, the project diffracts glossolalic and queer/trans illegibilities. Following through on the notion that 'Christianity' is foremost a symbolic or aesthetic system, the project reclaims glossolalic practice as a form of 'anti-writing' which unlooses itself. 'Indecent/ing tongues' is entangled in queer and liberation theologies, aesthetic and embodied practice, charismatic and other Christianities and the lived experience of queer/trans embodiment.
Supervisors
- Dr Nina Wakeford
- Louise Ashcroft