anthony petro

The Pamphlet That Has Roused Americans to Action for 250 Years

Friends!!! You know how obsessed I have become with Common Sense.

Tom Paine published that pamphlet 250 years ago this January. I published an essay about it TODAY, in the New York Times. Common Sense remains relevant as ever.

I hope you enjoy it. Gift article ⬇️⬇️⬇️

This piece is getting picked up again, so I share it in honor of World AIDS Day: floridaphoenix.com/2025/12/01/h...

Flier for roundtable discussion on Provoking Religion at AAR Boston! Can't wait to see and hear from Siobhan Kelly, Wendy Mallette, Drake Konow, Kris J. Trujillo, William Stell, and Sam Catilin! The provocations start on Monday, 12:30 PM in Hynes Convention Center, 203

Humbled and thrilled about this upcoming roundtable on *Provoking Religion* at AAR Boston! Can't wait to see and hear from Siobhan Kelly, Wendy Mallette, Drake Konow, Kris J. Trujillo, William Stell, and Sam Catilin -- the provocations start on Monday, 12:30 PM in Hynes Convention Center!

As of twenty-nine minutes ago, I get to publicly share that "Disability Works" won the South Atlantic MLA Book Award!

On Tap: A Theatre & Performance Studies Podcast This podcast looks at topics of current interest to professors and graduate students in the academic field of theatre and performance studies, including new ideas, theories, scholarly methodologies, t...

Thrilled that my Theatre Journal essay on guide dogs and rehabilitation performance cultures is the subject of the first segment on the latest episode of On TAP! Many thanks for the hosts for taking the time to read and discuss this weird essay.

www.ontappod.com

When We All Get To Heaven A queer church faces AIDS in 1980s and '90s San Francisco.

This podcast series by Lynne Gerber and her team about a San Francisco church facing the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s is simply stunning. Check it out!

no concrete solutions that haven't been offered, but commiserating as someone who is also very bad about this. i even moved to the midwest in hopes that no one would find me.

I wear an ND hat while mowing the lawn and carry an ND American Studies water bottle to the gym!

Truvy the whippet approaches catching a ball while her sister ignores her

Truvy catches the ball!

Truvy looks very snoopy like as she runs toward a ball still far above her

Truvy waits for the ball to fall closer to her snoot

Playtime With Truvy in Four Acts

no way!

Book award announcement described in post

It would seem that I missed an email and Disability Works ALSO won the Book of the Year Award for the National Communication Association’s GLBTQ Communication Studies Division!!!!

My profile picture with the award announcement

Over the moon to share that Disability Works received the National Communication Association’s Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies!

How have I only now discovered TJ's Chile Crackers. Wow.

this is me every time I accidentally glimpse Patrick's inbox... like, HOW???

LGBTQ+ Catholics make Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome and celebrate a new sense of acceptance "Brothers and sisters, I say this with emotion: It is time to restore dignity to everyone, especially to those who have been denied it," Bishop Franceseco Savino said at a Mass for the pilgrims.

Hundreds of LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families participated in a Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome on Saturday (Sept. 6), celebrating a new level of acceptance in the Catholic Church after long feeling shunned and crediting Pope Francis with the change.

Grateful to have Review # 6 of "Disability Works" out in H-Disability!

networks.h-net.org/group/review...

two alphabet songs!

Opinion | We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health

9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American."

It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

Notre Dame is running a search for the next Annenberg Chair in American Studies and Journalism (associate or full). Candidates will be expected to direct and teach courses for the Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy.

Applications due by Oct 15!

apply.interfolio.com/170389

Why do you appreciate unions?

I’ll start:

Weekends off
Paid vacations
Work breaks
Sick leave
Paid holidays
No child labor
Safer working conditions
Health care and retirement benefits

Pritzker: To the members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story.

The gradual inclusion of truth about the experience of slavery in American museums has been one of the most deeply researched and considered and consequential developments in public history over the last half century. Enraging we have to defend it in this way.

Author Q&A: Judith Weisenfeld on Religion in the Madhouse We're thrilled to share a special Q&A with Judith Weisenfeld, who generously answered five questions about her groundbreaking book, Black Religion in the Madhouse: Race and Psychiatry in Slavery’s Wak...

Author Q&A: Judith Weisenfeld on Black Religion in the Madhouse
open.substack.com/pub/usreligi...

Sunny picture of a perky but skeptical white whippet named Shelby in my arms

Shelburday

Shelby the white whippet sprawled on the carpet but looking VERY stern

“We need to talk about Truvy.”

Love this! Our whippets have daily battles with pillows

Shelby, a white whippet, holding a fairly large tree branch in her mouth.

A decade ago today, Shelby bravely battled a tree branch at Amory park in Brookline

Very grateful to chat about *Provoking Religion* with Clayton Jarrard for the New Books Network! Now available on their site as well as Spotify and Apple podcasts.

newbooksnetwork.com/provoking-re...

Mellon Foundation The Mellon Foundation makes grants to actively unlock the power in the arts and humanities that helps connect us all.

“American Academy of Arts&Sciences reports 96.3% of humanities grads age 23-32 fully employed. Earnings in humanitiess comparable to social/life sciences, job satisfaction levels too. A serious mismatch bw actual employment for hum grads +general perception."
www.mellon.org/voices/human...

These two...