Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition.

Melissa E. Sanchez's book, "Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition," explores the metaphorical connection between secular love and sacred faith in Western love poetry. Sanchez argues that the Christian faith is inherently promiscuous, characterized by doubt, divided desires, and a risk of faithlessness. This ideology of promiscuity is reflected in the secular lyric poetry of Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Mary Wroth, and John Donne. The book also examines how early modern English poetry uses racialized moral hierarchies to normalize monogamy as "white" and promiscuity as a form of religious and racial otherness. Sanchez's work challenges assumptions about Christianity, early modern poetry, race, and sexuality, and demonstrates the value of interdisciplinary scholarship. [Extracted from the article]