2026 Susan Draper White Lecture with Dr. Ellen T. Armour
Join us on Monday, February 23, 2026, for our next Susan Draper White Lecture, when we will welcome Dr. Ellen T. Armour as our presenter! Dr. Armour’s presentation is titled “Seeing Gender Otherwise: Theology as Visual Practice.”
Among the many issues dividing Americans these days is the conflict over how we should understand, see, and treat people whose gender identities break with norms. This is a conflict where religion, gender, and politics come together—familiar terrain for feminist theologians of all types. Central to this conflict is how we see gender (understood intersectionally, of course). Armour draws on insights central to her two most recent books, Signs and Wonders: Theology After Modernity (Columbia University Press, 2016), and Seeing and Believing: Religion, Digital Visual Culture, and Social Justice (Columbia University Press, 2023), as well as her long critical and constructive engagement with feminist and queer theology to diagnose and address this conflict.
Armour is Professor and E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Chair of Feminist Theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Her research and teaching interests include theologies and theories of gender, race, sexuality, disability and visual culture as well as continental philosophy. She is the author of numerous articles and three books, and she is also the co-editor of Bodily Citations: Religion and Judith Butler (Columbia University Press, 2006). She has served as the Director of the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality since 2007.
Publications
Her research interests include feminist theology, contemporary continental philosophy, and theories of sexuality, race, gender, disability, and embodiment. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, she is the author of several publications:
- Seeing and Believing: Religion, Digital Visual Culture, and the Struggle for Social Justice (Columbia University Press, 2023)
- Signs and Wonders: Theology After Modernity (Columbia University Press, 2016)
- Deconstruction, Feminist Theology, and the Problem of Difference: Subverting the Race/Gender Divide (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)
She was co-editor of Bodily Citations: Judith Butler and Religion (Columbia University Press, 2006).
Dr. Armour received her BA in Humanities from Stetson University and her MA and PhD from Vanderbilt University.
Teaching
She began her teaching career at Rhodes College in Memphis in 1991. While at Rhodes, she served as chair of the religious studies department and of several major faculty committees. She was honored to receive the Clarence Day Dean’s Award for Outstanding Teaching (1999) and the Jameson Jones Award for Faculty Service (2005). She joined the Vanderbilt faculty in the fall of 2006 and became the Director of the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality in 2007. Armour has served in various leadership roles during her time at Vanderbilt and became the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the fall of 2019.