The Promise Keepers, the Superego, and the Corporate University: A Queer Gothic Tale1

In June of 1996, a large, moneyed, and powerful emerging agent of the Religious Right, The Promise Keepers, held a revival meeting in Syracuse, NY, on the Syracuse University campus.2 Thirty-eight thousand and five hundred men, mostly white, mostly working class, dressed in dungarees and tee-shirts, slapping hands and yelling, “Score one for God!” arrived to spread the Word. The local newspaper, The Syracuse Post Standard, put out a special conference edition with the headline “WELCOME PROMISE KEEPERS!” Hotel rooms were booked from Rochester to Utica. The Carrier Dome, our lavish sports stadium, was transformed by huge TV screens. White tents covered the quad, set up to sell food and merchandise (PK sweatpants, PK tee shirts, PK water bottles, PK baseball caps, PK Day Planners, and mostly, PK books, all published by Focus on the Family). To the conservative Syracuse Common Council, The Promise Keepers were pennies from heaven. Syracuse University made a bundle, too. The Syracuse University administration requested that university workers depart early on the Friday of this flock's arrival, vacating needed parking spaces and giving our holy friends a wide berth. It cost each attendee $65.00. Women were not allowed. Some wives of the faithful facilitated the event as custodial workers or set up prayer circles on the campus lawn. There were no visible political protests.

It took me ten months to write about The Promise Keepers. Their invited presence in my community and university gave me—someone who rarely is at a loss of things to say—more than pause. It gave me near-paralysis. I have now responded to the Promise Keepers in two venues: a university lecture and an article in my local newspaper. Like most Academic Leftists, I have been trained to historicize oppressive institutions, and to recognize the importance of structural and economic forces that buttress ideologies, shape subjectivity, and limit agency. The Promise Keepers are ripe for such materialist investigati