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Dr. Gillian Frank

Assistant Professor (History)
      
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Dr. Gillian Frank

Assistant Professor (History)

 frankg@tcd.ie

 


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
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American Historical Association
"The Miseries and Heartbreak of Backstreet Abortion" in, editor(s)Sarah Handley Cousins et. al. , The Nursing Clio Reader, Rutgers University Press, Rutgers University Press, 2025, [Gillian Frank and Ronit Stahl], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Gillian Frank, "The Pastoral Was Political: Religious Rights and Reproductive Freedom Before Roe", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 93, (2), 2025, Journal Article, IN_PRESS
Gillian Frank, Sex with the Sound On, American Historical Review, 128, (2), 2023, p691 - 701, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Gillian Frank (w/ Rachel Kranson and Jonathan Krasner), "Introduction: Sexuality in American Jewish History", American Jewish History, 105, (1), 2021, p487 - 491, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Gillian Frank, Bethany Moreton & Heather White, Devotions and Desires: Histories of Religion and Sexuality in the 20th Century United States, University of North Carolina Press, 2018, Book, PUBLISHED  URL
More than Missionary: Doing the Histories of Religion and Sexuality Together in, editor(s)Gillian Frank, Bethany Moreton, Heather White , Devotions and Desires: Histories of Sexuality and Religion in the Twentieth-Century United States, United States, 2018, pp1 - 16, [Gillian Frank], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
  

Gillian Frank, 'Red State Religions', United States, 2025, -, Digital research resource production, PRODUCED
Gillian Frank, '"Resurrection of `Comstock Laws" Would Threaten Access to Abortifacients " But Event That Fear Misses Bigger Picture,"', Religion Dispatches, 2024, -, Notes: [https://religiondispatches.org/resurrection-of-comstock-laws-would-threaten-access-to-abortifacients-but-even-that-fear-misses-bigger-picture/], Fiction and creative prose, PUBLISHED
Gillian Frank, 'Abortion on Demand', The Revealer, 2024, -, Fiction and creative prose, PUBLISHED
Gillian Frank, "Abortion on Demand,", Wicker Lecture, Claremont College, 2024, 2024, Department of Religious Studies, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Gillian Frank, Amicus Curiae Brief of Historians of Religion, Reproduction, and the Law in support of petitioner., 2024, Notes: [Individual Members of the Indiana Medical Licensing Board et al v. Anonymous Plaintiff, et al. #22A-PL-02938 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 2023). Lead-author and co-signer of Lead-author and co-signer of Amicus Curiae Brief of Historians of Religion, Reproduction, and the Law in support of petitioner.], Report, PUBLISHED
Gillian Frank and Lauren Gutterman, 'Sexing History', Sexing History, 2017, -, Digital research resource production, PUBLISHED
"Think About that Special Man on His Way Home to You: Conservative Women and the Politics of Marriage in the 1970s," in, editor(s)Carolyn Bronstein and Whitney Strub , Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: The Destabilization of American Culture and Politics in the 1970s, United States, University of Massachusetts Press, 2016, pp178 - 195, [Gillian Frank], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED

  


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.