Anthony Petro

Anthony Petro is a Religion professor within Boston University’s College of Arts & Sciences. He specializes in Religion in America and Women and Gender Studies. His research and teaching interests include the history and politics of modern Christianity, especially the history of Protestantism and Catholicism in the United States; gender and sexuality studies; the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic; and religion, medicine, and public health.

His first book, After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion, investigates the history of American religious responses to the AIDS crisis and their role in the promotion of a national moral discourse on sex. 

He co-chairs a five-year seminar called “Global Perspectives on Religion and HIV/AIDS” for the American Academy of Religion. In addition, he is developing a new project that examines the history of American Christian engagement with health and disability policy in the U.S. since the 1950s. It demonstrates how Christian leaders and activists have shaped cultural understandings of health and moral citizenship through debates about topics such as alcoholism, euthanasia, disability rights, vaccination, abortion, and the war on drugs.