Gender + Sexualities

The study of gender, bodies and sexualities is central to a full appreciation of the past, whether one is studying political culture, work and leisure, religious ideologies, scientific practices, state formation, or war.  Our department has long been a recognized leader of gender history in a variety of temporal and geographic fields: medieval and modern Europe, colonial North America and modern US, Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, and South Asia.  Many of us work on topics that transcend national boundaries by integrating gender and sexuality into studies of imperialism, decolonization, borderlands, and international trade.  Our research methods are as diverse as the topics we study.  We approach the history of sex, gender, and sexuality as scholars of the emotions and the senses, of political economy and business, of material culture, consumption, and food practices, of cities and the built environment, and of childhood and the family. 

Some of our activities include:

• We host a regular Gender + Sexualities History Workshop series in which faculty, graduate students and guests share in-progress articles and chapters, and discuss current issues in feminist pedagogy and politics. Graduate students can earn credit for this through HIST 295 GS. 
• We host guest speakers, conferences, and symposia.
• We partner with the Department of Feminist Studies and other affiliated scholars.
• We host an annual graduate student retreat each June where graduate students from across campus discuss their work with faculty and peers separate from those on their doctoral committees.

Goals and Future Directions

• Reconsider the undergraduate and graduate curricula in light of the changing nature of the field.
• Develop new areas of departmental expertise, especially in relation to sex and sexuality. 
• Develop greater ties to the local community.

Faculty and Lecturers:

• Debra Blumenthal
• Brad Bouley
• James F. Brooks
• Sarah Case
• Utathya Chattopadhyaya
• Miroslava Chavez-Garcia
• Veronica Castillo-Munoz
• Adrienne Edgar
• Sharon Farmer
• Jarett Henderson
• Lisa Jacobson
• Carol Lansing
• Evelyne Laurent-Perrault
• Stephan Miescher
• Ann Marie Plane
• Luke Roberts
• Erika Rappaport
• Sherene Seikaly
• Ziaowei Zheng

Emeriti:

• Patricia Cohen
• Jane S. DeHart
• Nancy Gallagher

Affiliated Faculty:

• Janet Afary
• Eileen Boris
• Sabine Fruhstuck
• Ann-Elise Lewallen
• Mireille Miller-Young
• Leila J. Rupp

Current Graduate Students:

• Gokh Amin Alshaif
• Mariel Aquino
• Melissa J. Barthelemy
• Rosie C. Bermudez (affiliated; Chican@ Studies)
• Allison Bocchino
• Nick Cohen
• Sasha Coles
• Julia Crisler
• Nicole De Silva
• Sarah Dunne
• Thomas Franke
• Giulia Giamboni
• Sarah Hanson
• Fang He
• Emma John
• Julie Johnson
• Nora Kassner
• Caitlin Koford
• Janett Barragan Miranda (affiliated; Chican@ Studies)
• Laura Moore
• Rana Razek
• Anna Katharina Rudolph
• Sergey Saluschev
• Elizabeth Schmidt
• Stephanie Seketa
• Emily Simpson (affiliated; Writing Program)
• Kristen Thomas-McGill
• Moriah Ulinskas

Alumni/ae

• Justin Bengry (Honorary Research Fellow, Birkbeck College, University of London, Founder and Managing Editor of Notches: (Re)marks on the History of Sexuality)
• Megan Bowman (Lecturer, Georgia State University)
• Joshua Birk (Assistant Professor, Smith College)
• Sarah Case (Managing Editor, The Public Historian, Lecturer University of California, Santa Barbara
• Sandra T. Dawson (Lecturer, Northern Illinois University)
• April Haynes (Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin)
• Carolyn Herbst Lewis (Assistant Professor, Grinnell College)
• Betsy Homsher (Vice President, Student Affairs, Kettering University)
• Nancy McLaughlin (Associate Professor, UC Irvine)
• Elizabeth Pryor (Assistant Professor, Smith College)
• Nancy Stockdale (Associate Professor, University of North Texas)
• Danielle Swiontek (Department Chair, Santa Barbara City College)
• Bianca Murillo (Assistant Professor, Willamette University)
• Laura Nenzi (Associate Professor, University of Tenn. at Knoxville)
• Nicole Pacino  (Assistant Professor, University of Alabama, Huntsville)
• Anne Rapp (Associate Professor, Lewis University, Chicago)
• Katrin Sjursen (Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville)
• Tanya Stabler (Assistant Professor, Loyola University, Chicago)
• Matthew Sutton (Professor, Washington State University)
• Sarah Watkins (Visiting Assistant Professor, Colby College)
• Corinne Wieben (Assistant Professor, University of Northern Colorado)
• Angela Woollacott (Manning Clark Professor of History, Australian National University)
• Leandra Zarnow (Assistant Professor, University of Houston)

Research Cluster News

• Jane de Hart’s new book, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life (Knopf 2018) has just been published and is getting a great deal of attention with reviews in Newsday, the Wall Street Journal and others.
• Leila Rupp has partnered with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the University of Wisconsin Press on a 10-episode podcast – Teaching Tolerance: Queer America – that delves into practical ways teachers can discuss sexual and gender identity throughout the decades in their classrooms.
• Erika Rappaport’s new book, A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World (Princeton University Press, 2017), has won the prestigious Jerry Bentley Prize in World History.
• Sarah Case and Norah Kassner have curated a UCSB Library exhibition about UCSB forerunner Anna Blake Normal School, which runs until Dec. 20, 2018.
• Sharon Farmer’s new book The Silk Industries of Medieval Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) is forthcoming in November.
• Sherene Seikaly just published Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2016)

• Stephan Miescher, just co-edited with Michele Mitchell and Naoko Shibusawa, Gender Imperialism and Global Exchanges, (Wiley Blackwell, 2015)

• Erika Rappaport just published with Sandra Dawson and Mark Crowley, Consuming Behaviours: Identity, Politics and Pleasure in Twentieth Century Britain (Bloomsbury 2015)

• Debra Blumenthal’s article, “Domestic medicine: slaves, servants, and female medical expertise in late medieval Valencia” in Renaissance Studies volume 28, issue 4 (September 2014) won the Best Essay Prize given annually by the Society for Renaissance Studies.

Useful Links:

Funding, Conferences, Organizations

Organizations/Listservs:

• Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians
• Coordinating Council for Women in History
• H-Women
• H-Histsex
• International Federation for Research on Women
• Western Association of Women Historians

Journals:

• Gender and History
• Feminist Studies
• Feminist Review
• Journal of Women’s History
• Medieval Feminist Forum: Journal of the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship
• Radical History Review
• Signs
• Women’s History Review

Websites:

• Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index
• Lesley’s Hall’s: Women’s History Links
• Women’s History Network
• National Women’s History Museum-Resources and Links
• Notches: (Re)marks on the History of Sexuality
• Society for the Study of Early Modern Women