Playing Sacred: The Camp Aesthetics of Feminist and Queer Art

In the modern culture wars, conservatives often attack feminist and queer art as sacrilegious or obscene. But why does so much religious iconography animate this creative work? And how? This talk looks at the religious and political possibilities of camp as a style of engagement, focusing on the work of artists Ray Navarro and Judy Chicago. It asks: how do the aesthetics of camp challenge dominant ways that we think about religion and religious attachments? Anthony Petro is an associate professor in the Department of Religion and in the Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program at Boston University. This is the final event in the series “Reverent Irreverence: Parody, Religion, and Contemporary Politics,” sponsored by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics.