Amanda Izzo, associate professor of women and gender studies at Saint Louis University in Missouri, recently received the Jane Dempsey Douglass Prize from the American Society of Church History. The annual award recognizes the prior year’s best published essay on the role of women in the history of Christianity.
Dr. Izzo’s award-winning article, “The Homosocial Gospel: Winnifred Wygal and the Women Couples of the Young Women’s Christian Association of the USA,” examines the history of LGBTQ+ communities and individuals in Christian religious life during the early twentieth century. By exploring how women professional workers at the Young Women’s Christian Association understood same-sex relationships, the article aims to help scholars reimagine how LGBTQ+ Christians carved out space for themselves in U.S. church-related organizations.
A graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, Dr. Izzo holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D., all in American studies from Yale University. She is the author of Liberal Christianity and Women’s Global Activism: The YWCA of the USA and the Maryknoll Sisters (Rutgers University Press, 2018).