Kristin Peterson is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Boston College, teaching courses related to the intersections of media and religion. Her book, Unruly Souls: The Digital Activism of Muslim and Christian Feminists (Rutgers University Press, 2022), examines how digital spaces facilitate intersectional feminist activism within Evangelical Christian and Muslim American communities. Read more about Unruly Souls. She has published articles and book chapters on Muslim Instagram influencers, the digital mourning after the murder of three Muslim college students in Chapel Hill, hijab tutorial videos on YouTube, the Ms. Marvel comic series, and the Mipsterz fashion video. Visit the Publications page for a full list of articles and chapters.
Peterson completed her PhD in media studies from the College of Media, Communication and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder in April 2018. Her dissertation, “Voiceless Icons No More: The Self-Representations of Muslim American Lives in Digital Media,” examines a series of creative projects in which Muslim American youth engage with aesthetics, affects and hybrid styles to shift assumptions and present the complexities of their lives. Visit an interactive website created to accompany her dissertation project.
At CU-Boulder, she was a research fellow for the Center for Media, Religion and Culture. She earned an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder and a B.A. in Journalism and Photography from Dominican University. Her M.A. thesis focused on a group of YouTube videos created by young female converts to Islam, and the study examined how aesthetics are involved in the constitution of religious subjects and the formation of communities.
Kristin M. Peterson 