Anthony Petro
Anthony Petro (Ph.D., Religion, Princeton University) is an associate professor in the Department of Religion and in the Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program, and an affiliate faculty member in American Studies, at Boston University. My teaching and research interests include religion and culture in the United States; religion and visual culture; religion, medicine, and public health; and gender and sexuality studies. My first book, *After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion* (Oxford, 2015), investigates the history of U.S. American religious responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis and their role in the promotion of a national moral discourse on sex.
I am finishing a book called *Provoking Religion: Sex, Art, and the Sacred in the Modern United States* (coming out with Oxford in spring 2025), which traces heated debates over sex, art, and religion to reveal competing genealogies of the sacred and the secular in the modern U.S., especially during the heyday of the culture wars. It also explores how a range of feminist and queer artists have engaged religious themes and rituals in their work, spanning from Judy Chicago’s 1979 “The Dinner Party” to the controversy surrounding David Wojnarowicz’s "A Fire in the Belly" as part of 2010’s “Hide/Seek” exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. Provoking Religion examines how this archive of visual and performance art helps us to rethink key categories in the study of religion and in gender and sexuality studies.
Address: Department of Religion
Boston University
145 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
I am finishing a book called *Provoking Religion: Sex, Art, and the Sacred in the Modern United States* (coming out with Oxford in spring 2025), which traces heated debates over sex, art, and religion to reveal competing genealogies of the sacred and the secular in the modern U.S., especially during the heyday of the culture wars. It also explores how a range of feminist and queer artists have engaged religious themes and rituals in their work, spanning from Judy Chicago’s 1979 “The Dinner Party” to the controversy surrounding David Wojnarowicz’s "A Fire in the Belly" as part of 2010’s “Hide/Seek” exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. Provoking Religion examines how this archive of visual and performance art helps us to rethink key categories in the study of religion and in gender and sexuality studies.
Address: Department of Religion
Boston University
145 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
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Book by Anthony Petro
--Leigh Eric Schmidt, Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor, Washington University in St. Louis
"The AIDS crisis was not an epoch that we survived. It is a battle that we are still fighting. In this remarkable work of historical intervention Anthony Petro explores the extraordinary religious ferment that accompanied the emergence of AIDS in the United States. Petro shows that when Americans talk about AIDS they are rarely just talking about a scientific problem or a pharmaceutical solution. They are instead offering a sociology of suffering and a plan for spiritual warfare. After the Wrath of God is required reading for anyone interested in the way this powerful religious past will shape our political future."
--Kathryn Lofton, Professor of Religious Studies, American Studies, History and Divinity; Chair, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Yale University
"Anthony Petro's novel account of the role of American Christianity in the AIDS crisis moves beyond expected narratives of the rise of the right to encompass a diversity of religious responses across the 'long 1980s.' Illuminating and important."
--Margot Canaday, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University
Essays and Chapters by Anthony Petro
Book Reviews by Anthony Petro
Online Essays and Interviews by Anthony Petro
--Leigh Eric Schmidt, Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor, Washington University in St. Louis
"The AIDS crisis was not an epoch that we survived. It is a battle that we are still fighting. In this remarkable work of historical intervention Anthony Petro explores the extraordinary religious ferment that accompanied the emergence of AIDS in the United States. Petro shows that when Americans talk about AIDS they are rarely just talking about a scientific problem or a pharmaceutical solution. They are instead offering a sociology of suffering and a plan for spiritual warfare. After the Wrath of God is required reading for anyone interested in the way this powerful religious past will shape our political future."
--Kathryn Lofton, Professor of Religious Studies, American Studies, History and Divinity; Chair, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Yale University
"Anthony Petro's novel account of the role of American Christianity in the AIDS crisis moves beyond expected narratives of the rise of the right to encompass a diversity of religious responses across the 'long 1980s.' Illuminating and important."
--Margot Canaday, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University