Dr. Gillian Frank

Gillian Frank is an Assistant Professor of History at Trinity College Dublin. He is the author of numerous academic articles on the histories of sexuality, gender and religion (which have appeared in venues like the Journal of the History of Sexuality, American Jewish History, and Gender and History) and public facing scholarship (with bylines in publications including The Washington Post, Time, Jezebel and Slate). Through his column at the Revealer, "More Than Missionary," Frank regularly writes about the intertwined histories of religion and reproductive rights. He is co-editor of Devotions and Desires: Histories of Sexuality and Religion in the 20th Century United States (UNC Press: 2018). Frank is currently completing his manuscript called A Sacred Choice: Liberal Religion and the Struggle for Abortion Before Roe v Wade (forthcoming UNC Press). You can listen to his podcast Sexing History, which explores how the history of sexuality shapes our present, wherever you stream your shows.

  History of Gender and Sexuality   History of the United States   Religious History   Reproductive Rights

US Sexual Politics History of Conservative Thought and Activism in the US Reproductive Rights in the US Gender Politics in the US Religious Politics in the US My research focuses on the history of gender and sexuality in US culture and politics, especially as they intersect with religion and race in the modern era. I study the religious commitments, popular cultures and political practices of progressive movements and reactionary counter-movements since 1865. I am invested, in particular, in questions of how progressive and reactionary movements produce and reproduce their sexualized and gendered values in public"often with religion, popular culture and public policy as key sites of mediation and conflict. My earliest peer-reviewed publication on the backlash against disco music took up key questions that continue to animate my scholarship: How are cultural boundaries produced and policed? How do moral panics shape the body politic? In what ways do communities and social movements utilize popular culture in their political and identitarian projects? This first article, widely cited and taught, was featured in a documentary for PBS"s "American Experience." Succeeding publications, appearing in Gender and History, The Journal of the History of Sexuality and an array of public history venues, built upon these questions and explored how women-led social and political movements redefined citizenship between 1945 and 1990 by deeming African American civil rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, gay rights, and abortion access harmful to children. These interests and publications form the foundation of a book in progress, Save Our Children: Sexual Politics and Conservatism in the Postwar United States (under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press). This manuscript will be revised and finalized over the next three years.