‘[God] Is A Flaming Hebrew Letter’: Esoteric Camp in Angels in America
Allan Kilner-Johnson
Literature & Theology June 1, 2019 DOI: 10.1093/litthe/frz003 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Tony Kushner's Angels in America aligns the theological history of revelation and exegesis with camp performance, defining mystical experience as a form of camp that marks the receiver as questionably other; this correlation, the author contends, resists the scientific-materialist positivism that had dominated artistic and academic responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis. |
Abstract
This article turns attention to the mystical theology of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America to demonstrate how Kushner aligns the long theological history of spiritual revelation and textual exegesis with the performative associations of camp, the stylised heightening of otherness, citation, and irony central to contemporary gay culture. Kushner’s play underscores the role of the divinely-inspired interloper in the development of both Western religion and the esoteric currents which run beneath, defining mystical experience as a form of camp which has historically ascribed questionable alterity to the receiver. As this article maintains, this suggestive correlation between high camp and esoteric faith works to resist a positivism firmly rooted in the scientific materialism of modernity and which had previously served as the most consistent artistic and academic response to the HIV/AIDS crisis.