Anthony Petro

Anthony Petro is an associate professor in the Department of Religion and in the Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program. From 2020 to 2023, I was also BU’s Distinguished Teaching Professor, a chair endowed by the National Endowment for the Humanities, which allowed me to do many things, one of which was to found BU’s Health Humanities Project.

My teaching and research interests include the history of religion in United States; religion, medicine, and public health; and gender and sexuality studies. My first book, After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion (Oxford University Press, 2015), examines the history of American religious responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis and their role in the promotion of ongoing forms of what I call “moral citizenship.” I’ve also written several essays dealing with Catholic studies, disability, secularism, and feminist and queer studies.

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My current research includes a biography of the queer Catholic writer Kathryn Hulme and essays on visual artists Paul Thek and Christian Walker.