Provoking religion : sex, art, and the culture wars / Anthony M. Petro.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Petro, Anthony Michael, 1981- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art--Political aspects--United States.

Art.

Christian art and symbolism.

Representation (Philosophy).

Culture conflict--United States.

Culture conflict.

Culture conflict--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Genre:

works of art.

Art.

Physical Description:

xiii, 308 pages : black and white illustrations ; 25 cm

illustrations

Place of Publication:

New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"In the 1980s and 1990s, leaders of the Christian Right became obsessed with feminist and queer art, which they attacked as sacrilegious or pornographic--and sometimes both. Tracing the history of these public debates, this book provides a new interpretation of the politics of the culture wars that avoids simply pitting religious conservatives against secular progressives. It reveals both how conservative Christians read art through a literalist lens--an 'aesthetics of literalism'--and why so many feminist and queer artists--including Marlon Riggs, Bob Flanagan, Sheree Rose, Judy Chicago, David Wojnarowicz, and Renee Cox--were drawn to religious imagery in their creative work, often casting their own religious and theological visions."-- Provided by publisher.

"In the late twentieth century, artists were on the front lines of the culture wars. Leaders of the Christian Right in the U.S. made a national spectacle out of feminist and queer art, blasting it as sacrilegious or pornographic--and sometimes both. On the bully pulpits of television and talk radio, as well as in the halls of Congress, conservatives denounced artists ranging from Robert Mapplethorpe and Judy Chicago to Marlon Riggs and David Wojnarowicz. Conservatives, alarmed by shifting sex and gender norms, collided with progressive artists who were confronting sexism, homophobia, and racism. In 'Provoking religion,' Anthony Petro offers a compelling new history of the culture wars that places competing moralities of gender and sexuality alongside competing visions of the sacred. The modern culture wars, he shows, are best understood not as contests pitting religious conservatives against secular activists, but as a series of ongoing historical struggles to define the relationship between the sacred and the political. Through captivating case studies of 'subversive' artists, 'Provoking religion' illuminates the underside of the culture wars, revealing how progressive artists and activists rendered from those most apparently profane aspects of human life--the stuff of conservatives' worst nightmares--their own haunting visions of the sacred."-- Publisher's description.

Contents:

Introduction: Inventing the culture wars

The queer lives of religious forms : Bob Flanagan's crip Catholicism

Judy Chicago's The dinner party : feminist myth and the literalism of sex

Wojnarowicz/Wildmon : between queer imagination and the aesthetics of literalism

Ray Navarro's Jesus camp, AIDS activist video, and the "new anti-Catholicism"

Reňe Cox's Catholicism, family values, and the politics of offense

Afterword.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-294) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Petro, Anthony Michael, 1981- Provoking religion.

ISBN:

9780190938437

0190938439

OCLC:

1500648416