Ann Pellegrini is a prominent scholar whose work significantly bridges the fields of queer theory, performance studies, and religion. Her scholarship often explores the complex intersections of embodiment, identity, and belief, challenging conventional understandings of these concepts.
Pellegrini’s influential book, Performance Anxieties: Staging Psychoanalysis, Staging Race, delves into how public performances, both theatrical and everyday, shape racial and sexual identities, revealing the anxieties inherent in these processes. Beyond performance, Pellegrini critically examines the role of religion in shaping queer lives and vice versa.
In Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance, co-authored with Janet R. Jakobsen, she interrogates the ways religious discourse impacts LGBTQ+ rights and experiences, advocating for a more inclusive understanding of faith and sexuality. Her work consistently pushes boundaries, inviting readers to reconsider normative frameworks and embrace the fluidity and complexity of human experience.
Pellegrini’s contributions offer vital insights into how identity is performed, regulated, and reimagined within cultural and religious landscapes. Pellegrini is on the faculty of New York University.
