Are you struggling with your identity? Do you simply want to know more about the people around you? If you’ve said yes to either of these questions, consider taking one of Dr. Carlson’s eye-opening courses! From Intro to Christianity to Queer Theology, this incredible man will expose you to the many thoughts and feelings of past and present humanity. Dr. Carlson’s teachings, encompassed by his passions of social justice and equality, will guide you in your path to a better understanding of both yourself and the world. To make this all even better, his socks will make you smile and his bowties are guaranteed to teach you a thing or two about fashion.
Her Campus Cal Lutheran: What made you interested in Gender & Women’s Studies and Religion?
Dr. Peter Carlson: As director of the Gender and Women’s Studies program here, I’m definitely interested in the role that gender plays within religious traditions, but I’m also interested in the role that gender plays in other disciplines as well. Our minor seeks to give classes that investigate the world through the lens of gender and its different roles played in cultures, societies, and even different disciplines. Our goal was to make sure that we honor the role woman’s studies has played in essentially giving space for something a little broader which is gender studies. We’re looking to breakdown the binary that we usually think of gender occupying: male or female. We dissect how gender plays a role in whatever discipline the course is about; gender in sociology, gender in theology, gender in religion, etc. Women’s studies are, of course, a big part of that.
HC: Where did you grow up and how did these roots influence you?
PC: I grew up in quite a conservative Evangelical Christian community in Wheaton, Illinois. I then became an Episcopalian in high school, but I never stopped being an Evangelical. Religion is important to me, personally, but it is also important to me academically. I would teach differently if I were not a religious person, so the interest in knowing more about religion was always there.
HC: What was your major in school? How did you come to be in the profession you are in today?
PC: I majored in theater in my undergraduate work about half a million years ago, and then worked in a number of dead-end jobs. I worked in television for quite some time and I did not go back to school until I was 39. I was originally interested in doing theology and I soon found out that I was a really good historian, so I ended up shifting toward studying religious history. My specialty is the medieval period. I love badly written Latin manuscripts—they just delight me!
HC: Why do you love studying history?
PC: I like history because I like trying to crawl inside the minds of people who lived hundreds of years ago and trying to figure out what they believed and what was important to them. Why did certain things matter? Or did they? Let’s face it, there’s so many things we do on a daily basis and we don’t even really know why we do it.
HC: What interests you in studying gender?
PC: I’m interested in gender, again like religion, in part because of my personal life. When you grow up gay in a conservative Christian world, even though my parents aren’t necessarily specifically that kind of conservative since they were always a little more open, you grow up thinking about gender a lot. You grow up thinking about whether or not you are “man enough” or as my lesbian friends explain, you wonder if you are “woman enough.” As my trans friends say, “you wonder why God gave you the wrong body.” These kinds of questions are in the core of investigating gender. Consequently, because there is a religious layer to that, I see those two things intersecting.
HC: What is your Queer Theology class about?
PC: What I’m best known for is that I teach the Queer Theology course here. This course really begins to investigate those questions of what I call, “the mistake of binaries.” This is the assumption that things are either this or that. It deals intensely with questions of identity of which gender is just one part and religion is another part. We talk about intersectionality a lot. For example, this is me: gender, this is me: religion, this is me: career, but then all of these things intersect; you can’t take them apart. You can’t pull one out and still have the rest held together. Who I am as a college professor is every bit as important as who I am with regard to sexuality, who I am biologically, who I am religiously speaking, who I am within a family context, who I am within this community of Thousand Oaks. All of these intersect to create this thing called me, this thing called my identity. So we ask all these questions about identity and then we throw in the question of “where is God?” or “where is The Divine?” in all of this. These are a lot of the reasons why I’m passionate about what I teach here.
HC: Speaking of passion, what are you most passionate about?
PC: Let’s take everything I just said and add in music and my family. I love to take the phrase “family values”, which is traditionally mainly used by very conservative religious people, and say, “Yes. I actually think that family values are incredibly important.” Chosen family is every bit as important as biological family, sometimes more so. Family values matter. On the topic of music, I play piano and I sing; I love both. I studied saxophone, but I was very, very bad at it, but I still love the saxophone. I like all kinds of music. I sing with Areté, which is directed by Wyant Morton, our chorale director on campus, and we’re a small semi-professional group. It’s been wonderful singing with them because it keeps me up to speed as a musician, and pushes me as a musician. I’ve been very grateful to have this group make me a better singer and a better musician in general.
I’m passionate about justice, social justice issues in particular. Queer and trans rights and equality matter deeply to me. One of the big issues that I’ve been working with lately is the issue of trans and intersex folk and what they are struggling with. Have you seen the gender inclusive signs on the campus restrooms? I’m extremely proud of the fact that those came out of a conversation that we had in one of my Queer Theology classes. My students and I went around campus and located all of the single occupancy restrooms and we realized that we could be making an incredibly welcoming statement to trans people. We also realized that we would be making an incredible learning statement for what we call cis gender—people who identify as the gender they present. Someone asked me once “why didn’t you just put a sign up that says ‘Restroom’?” and I said “because ‘Restroom’ doesn’t challenge the binary.” We need to challenge it. If you just see “Restroom”, you still think of either male or female, but the fact that we have a statement that says “All Genders” really challenges the binary and that is so important to me.
HC: What are your thoughts on Caitlyn Jenner’s transition?
PC: I’m glad that she used her platform to speak out and I think that’s a case of using privilege well. As she, herself, acknowledges, she is in a place of privilege. I’d like to emphasize that this is not to diminish the bravery of Caitlyn’s act of publicly going through the transition; the reclaiming of her own identity as female. What I want people to remember is that the vast majority of trans and intersex people do not have that platform from which to operate. Also, I want it to be known that there are a lot of people dealing with those same struggles of identity who don’t have the protections that, in many ways, Caitlyn Jenner has. I’m deeply grateful for what she has done, but at the same time it is important to recognize that Caitlyn Jenner had very specific privilege that allowed her to claim her identity more safely than a lot of people have. So that becomes my next concern; let’s make this a safe journey for everyone to take. I’m deeply grateful she used her privilege in such a positive and affirming way for those people who don’t have that kind of privilege.
HC: What advice would you give to a student who is trying to find herself or himself?
PC: Don’t stop. There’s a wonderful YouTube program that I love called the “It Get’s Better” program. It’s basically saying “I know things are hard. I recognize your struggle. I’ve been there. It get’s better.” I love the program. I want to tell that to everyone because let’s face it—youth is a really hard time. We are trying to figure out who we are and that never stops but it’s intense in your teen years and your early twenties; it just is. I’m glad about the “It Get’s Better” program, but at the same time, I also want to say that sometimes it actually doesn’t get better in this world, and that’s a problem. What I want to do is say to those kids, “If you are in that world, find help and get out.” As heartbreaking as it may be to leave something behind, sometimes we have to. With that being said, I have people accuse me of not being masculine enough, or the occasional “Why are you so gay?” I am who I am because I want to model for my students the fact that you don’t have to fit certain stereotypes. I can wear fabulous socks, I can be a screaming queen, I can use power tools, and I can be interested in cars. I want to break down those societal understandings of “this is what you’re supposed to be.” Stop worrying about what you’re supposed to be and just be who you are. Never go into a job interview trying to be something you’re not in an effort to please the interviewers, because if that’s what you have to do to work there, you don’t want to work there. Be who you are. Don’t feel like you have to hide or tamper down who you are—it’s simply ultimately not worth the effort. It ends up causing a lot more anxiety later on and you will have to cope with it.
You know what, this is it in a nutshell: “Be yourself; everyone else is taken” said by Oscar Wilde.
Sometimes we don’t know who we are, and that’s okay, but here’s the thing that’s lethal: Pretending you know who you are when you really don’t. Sometimes being yourself means being able to say “I’m actually not really sure who I am today” and understanding that that’s okay. Our identities are fluid, gender is fluid, everything is fluid.
Be who you are, even if you’re not sure who that is.
HC: How do you feel about working at Cal Lutheran?
PC: I’ve been deeply fortunate to work at a school where people want me to teach into my passions and out of who I am. I acknowledge CLU for that—not all schools would approve of that. I think we do recognize here that if you are working out of who you are authentically, you will be a much better teacher. You’ll get your students more interested in what you do if you are more passionate about it. It’s great when you are excited everyday when you walk in the classroom and say: “Yes. This is home. This is where I belong. This is a good thing.”
HC: What is your favorite pastime?
PC: Eating! I am passionate about food; I love food. I love the role that food plays in religious rituals, I love the fact that food and thanksgiving bring about the opportunity to get to know people—you get to find out who people are around food. So yes. I love eating. I love talking about food. My husband and I will make something for dinner and then we’ll sit there and eat it and sort of dissect it and try to figure out “well, what would we do next time? What could make this even better?” And my mother-in-law will sit there and say “Just say it’s good!” Half the fun of food is trying to make it better and dissect what makes it so good! So we love food, we absolutely love it, and sometimes we love it just a little too much. [Pats his stomach.] Food is never just about eating, it’s about social networks, community, and above all, food is about fun!
HC: What is the most exciting or risky thing you’ve ever done?
PC: Going back to school when I was 39 to get a master’s degree and Ph.D. I was completely and utterly terrified. The idea of giving up a world, even if you know it’s not where you belong, is terrifying. There’s a wonderful line in a book where this woman was talking about her job and she said “It was a sh*tty little world, but I knew how it worked.” In a way, that’s kind of how I felt about working in television. It wasn’t even a “sh*tty little world”, it just wasn’t my world. I knew how it worked and I knew what I needed to do—I knew how to be the business producer for a television show. I knew also that it was deeply unsatisfying and not where I belonged.
This really is that sense of going out into nowhere. You’re taking a step out and you’re just hoping that there’s ground underneath your foot somewhere. I knew I was going to be in massive debt from going back to school and I was aware that I was giving up everything I knew. I knew I might never get a job, but you know, now I’m here. It certainly worked out and I somehow landed on my feet. Certainly it has taught me the reality of grace.
HC: Do you have a motto that you live by?
PC: “Oh crap!” Usually spoken after I’ve just done something that I shouldn’t have done. I have lots of mottos, but “oh crap” is certainly the best one.
HC: Who are your role models?
PC: I have many. My parents are certainly role models. My father was one of the most ruthlessly ethical people I’ve ever known in my life. He is a man who, back in the day, wouldn’t even record an album onto a cassette tape for his own personal use because he felt like that was stealing from the artist. That’s the kind of person he was. My mom is one of my role models because she instilled in me a love for language, a love for trying to say things as absolutely clearly as you can. Language is always liquid; it’s fluid and hard to nail down. It’s also gorgeous—symbols are beautiful. For example, religious myths are not always completely clear in what they’re trying to communicate, but my goodness they are gorgeous. Sometimes you just sit back and say “I have no idea what this is, but I’m just going to revel right in the beauty of it.” This is going to sound like I’m playing to the administration on campus, but Martin Luther is a role model of mine. As much as I think he was a crankypants and kind of an annoying person, he engaged on a relentless and ruthless search for truth and he was willing to tear up his whole world in order to find it. I find that kind of risk taking so inspiring. My husband, Eric Kamm is a huge role model of mine. He’s here now at Cal Lutheran finishing up a bachelor’s degree that he never finished. That’s huge.
HC: Please tell me about your socks!
PC: This is actually related to the idea of not trying to fit in to what other people think I should be—and they’re just fabulous! Every now and then you’ve got to get your Superman socks on because you just need to believe in your own superpowers. Usually it’s the days when other people are telling me that I have no superpowers that I’ll say “You know what? It’s time to pull out the Superman socks.” I also just love color, especially throwing together colors that are unexpected. I don’t remember when it started, but now I’m just “that professor with the socks and the bowties.”
HC: Anything you’d like to add?
PC: Well, since Her Campus is directed toward women in particular, just remember that we live in a society that is systemically organized to discriminate against women. It just is. That means that you, women, will have to be doing some fighting. This fight is a good thing, and it can actually be invigorating. You know what, there are two really, really important things to remember. One is you are a lot stronger than the society that is systemically stacked against you thinks you are. Number two is there are others of us who are fighting right alongside. You’re never fighting alone, and that’s really important to remember.