Research

Support the National Endowment for the Humanities

The BU Center for the Humanities traces its founding to a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), a vital national resource. Recently, the NEH has terminated hundreds of grants that support scholars, cultural organizations, and humanities councils in every state and enacted significant reductions in force of the NEH staff. The […]

Anthony Petro Featured on Center Podcast

Center staff member Roni Lakin (CAS ’25) sat down with Associate Professor of Religion Anthony Petro to discuss Petro’s forthcoming book, Provoking Religion: Sex, Art, and the Culture Wars, which he completed during his time as a Jeffrey Henderson Senior Research Fellow. Tune in as they discuss protest art, ACT UP, and the strong reactions late […]

Meet the Fellows: Holly Wiegand, PhD Candidate in English

Holly Wiegand, PhD candidate in English and Dissertation Fellow  is searching the archives and popular literature for stories from 19th-century female preachers. Her work follows the lives of preachers like Jareena Lee through memoir, testimonials, and representations of the female preacher in fiction. Learn more about the Center’s Dissertation Fellowships. Video by Roni Lakin (CAS’25, […]

Anthony Petro Publishes Article on Naming of HIV/AIDS

Associate Professor of Religion and 2023-24 Henderson Senior Research Fellow Anthony Petro recently published “How HIV/AIDS got its name − the words Americans used for the crisis were steeped in science, stigma and religious language” in The Conversation. “No matter how scientific or objective people hope to be, epidemics are shaped by culture,” wrote Petro, […]