Exploring Death, Diaspora, and Gender in the Coptic Community : Going Home (Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Arab World)

Exploring Death, Diaspora, and Gender in the Coptic Community: Going Home explores the dynamics of death and gender in diasporic Coptic communities. Theologically and socially, the Coptic community is obsessed with death—incorporating numerous musings on the afterlife into music, teaching, ritual, and art. This accompanies a fixation on martyrdom that pervades Coptic culture. Additionally, all of these aspects of Coptic life are deeply gendered in ways that communicate a theology of gender that bleeds into the world of the living. The author explores Coptic death rituals, paradigms of martyrdom, and representations of contemporary sainthood, providing an analysis of their impacts on Coptic women and queer Copts. Ultimately, these death practices reinforce theologies of gender and the body that promote problematic gender hierarchies.