Anthea Butler

Anthea Butler is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania.

Anthea Butler is a historian of American religion, and her research spans American Religious history, race, politics, evangelicalism and media. Professor Butler’s recent book is White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America (Ferris and Ferris/University of North Carolina Press, 2021).

Her project at the center covers the historiographical origins of religious nationalisms spanning the 20th century, focused on the United States, Brazil, and Nigeria. The rise of the cold war, missionary activity, race, and theology played a role in bolstering the rise of authoritarian leadership and nationalism in these nations, finding its full flowering in charismatic political leadership undergirded by religious leaders.

Professor Butler is the winner of the 2022 Martin Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion from the American Academy of Religion and has received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, Princeton University, Yale University, and Harvard University.