Phillips Lecture Series

The Religious Studies Phillips Lecture was established in 1987 by the United Religious Ministry in honor of Dwight L. Phillips (1905-1973), a leading Charlotte developer and contractor in the construction and development of apartments, housing developments, and shopping centers in Charlotte, and military installations in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Among other notable landmarks, Phillips built the Charlotte Merchandise Mart and Freedom Drive Shopping Center in Charlotte.  Phillips was a native Charlottean who grew up on his father’s dairy farm in what became the Sharon neighborhood of the city.

2026-27 Lecture

Anthony Petro, Ph.D.
“Provoking Religion: Sex, Art, and the Aesthetics of Literalism”

How should we read contemporary art dealing with religion, gender, and sexuality? During the U.S. culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, conservative Christian leaders frequently attacked feminist and queer art that borrowed from Christian visual culture, labeling it blasphemous or pornographic. This talk examines this ideological clash through the 1990 legal battle between queer artist David Wojnarowicz and Methodist minister-turned-activist Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association, who had cropped and recontextualized Wojnarowicz’s imagery in an anti-NEA pamphlet. By analyzing their debate over sacrilege and censorship, this paper uses their court case to theorize an “aesthetics of literalism” driving the Christian Right’s approach to interpreting contemporary art.

Anthony Petro is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in U.S. Religious History.

Tuesday, Oct. 20

Location: Halton Reading Room (Atkins Library)
Time: Talk followed by Q&A begins at 5:30 p.m. (60 min). Light reception begins at 4:45 p.m.

Previous Phillips Lectures

2025-26 Lecture

Sylvester Johnson, Northwestern University, “Governing the Ethical Future of AI: Automation, Humanity, and Democracy”

2024-25 Lecture

David Walker, University of California, Santa Barbara, on “Mormon Wrestling: A Genealogy”

2023-24 Lecture

Gill Frank, Princeton University, “The Pastoral is Political: Religious Activism and Abortion Travel Before Roe v. Wade”