Please join us for a lecture by Professor Matthew Milliner, titled “The Mary Underground: Subterranean Global Virgins.” Milliner’s presentation will view Mary as a cipher for the politics and theology of global Christianity, and will examine a history of neglected “underground” Marys as a corrective to overly exalted practices of veneration and iconography. If Mary has been depicted as “La Conquistadora” (the conquerer) in North America, this lecture sees her as “La Conquistada” (the conquered) as well, and asks visually what we might glean about aesthetics and the history of religion through the figure of Mary.

Matthew Milliner holds a Ph.D. in art history from Princeton University and is Professor of Art History at Wheaton College. He is an appointee to the Curatorial Advisory Board of the United States Senate, and has written for publications ranging from The New York Times to Comment Magazine. He was awarded a Commonwealth fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and is author most recently of The Everlasting People: G.K. Chesterton and the First Nations and Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon, which was described by Peter Brown as a remarkable “story of the pervasive influence of a single, poignant icon of Mary and Christ…that opens the mind and the heart to a long-neglected chapter in the history of the Christian imagination.” He was recently interviewed about Mother of the Lamb by Dimitri Gondicas, Director, Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies.

The lecture will be on Thursday, April 4, 2024, 4:30 pm–6:00 pm in Robertson 002. RSVP recommended.