Timothy Couper
Education
B.A. Philosophy and Psychology - Gordon College, 2009
M.A. Theology - Fuller Theological Seminary, 2018
S.T.M. Theological and Philosophical Studies of Religion - Drew University, 2019
Biography
Timothy “Coup” Couper is a fifth-year doctoral student in systematic theology with
research interests at the intersection of constructive and political theology, queer theory, continental philosophy of religion, and both queer and continental varieties of metaphysics. Coup’s overarching project is a deconstructive rendering of the Trinity, weaving three distinct philosophies of time into a queer cloud that Catherine Keller would call “plurisingularity.” Searching within the apophasis of the orthodox Trinitarian formulations, the philosophies and theologies of C.S. Peirce, Giles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Elizabeth Freeman, and Marcella Althaus-Reid entwine to cultivate temporal multiplicity and fluidity. In addition to creative and contextual renderings of God, Coup is fascinated by perspectives on queerness within contemporary communities of witches. In the aftershocks and uneven temporalities of the pandemic, Coup is also focused on the queer conceptions of exile both as the simultaneous opening of new livable worlds and as what Edward Said calls a traumatic “unhealable rift,” a “crippling sorrow of estrangement,” and a “condition of terminal loss.” As trauma slows, bends, and queers temporal linearity, multiplicities embody themselves in grief and hope, in precarity and assemblage, in the destabilizing of identities and in coalescences amidst difference - political perichoresis. Coup received a Bachelor of Arts from Gordon College in 2009 with a double major in philosophy and psychology. While spending 7 years working part-time as a musical and technical director at various churches ranging from Anglican to Nondenominational and serving for 5 years as the full-time caregiver for their grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease, Coup completed a Master of Arts in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2018 and a Master of Sacred Theology in Theological and Philosophical Studies of Religion from Drew University in 2019. Coup lives in New Jersey with their daughter, Juniper Snow (Ginny for short), and Ellie the Goldendoodle.
Research interests
Queer Theory and Queer Theology, Political Theology, Philosophies of Time,
Philosophy of Religion, Philosophies of Multiplicity, Orthodox Theology, Religious Study of Contemporary Witchcraft and Neopaganism, Process Theology and Philosophy.
Notable Publications and Presentations
“Walter Bauer and the Unfinished Business of Nicaea: A Hauntological Reconsideration of Fourth-Century Political Theology.” To be presented at the 2025 Political TheologyNetwork Conference in the “After Lives of Orthodoxy” unit in Nashville, TN, October 26, 2025.
“Perichoretic Aναρχία: The Queerness of Trinitarian Inclusivity Beyond Monarchy.” To
be presented as a part of the Ecclesiological Investigations conference entitled “Dissent, Power, and Christian Identity After Nicaea” in Thessaloniki, Greece, September 18, 2025.
“After Certainty: Liberations of Failure,” published by Catholic Re-Visions and hosted by The Political Theology Network, April 20, 2024.
“The Hope and Failure of Liberation: Queer Theory and the Theology of
Gustavo Gutiérrez.” Presented in the “Liberation Theology” unit at the 2022 Annual
Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), Denver, CO, November 19,
2022.
“C.S. Peirce’s Cosmology as a Queer Trinitarian Philosophy of Time.” Presented at The Northeast Philosophy of Religion Colloquium, New York, NY, February 26, 2022.
“Three Queer Constructions of God: Theorizing the Trinity as the Embodiment of
Triadic Temporalities.” Presented in the “Sacred Texts, Theory, and Theological
Construction” unit at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion
(AAR), Boston, MA, December 9, 2020.