Corita Kent: Religious difference and aesthetic sensibility

Corita Kent — a Roman Catholic nun, artist, and educator — navigated the mid-twentieth-century avant-garde while maintaining her place within the Church, and her work offers a rare lens onto how religious difference shapes artistic sensibility. Existing scholarship has analysed Kent's social and historical context, but has paid less attention to the theological and philosophical dimensions of her interactions with people of different faiths. This project addresses that gap by closely examining textual and visual material from Kent's papers at Harvard's Schlesinger Library and the Corita Art Center. The aim is to understand how collisions between faiths — not just within Catholicism, but across religious boundaries — helped form aesthetic sensibilities. This is primarily curiosity-driven fundamental research in the humanities. It does not promise a practical application. Deeper understanding of how religious difference influences artistic perception could, however, inform how museums, galleries, and educators present work by artists whose faith shaped their practice. It may also enrich broader conversations about how pluralistic societies produce and value art.