- Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Gillian Frank
Princeton University, CSR (Center for the Study of Religion), Department Member
- History of Conservatism, History of Sexuality, Women's History, Gender History, History of Religion, Gender Studies, and 13 moreHistory of Childhood and Youth, Religion, Gender and Sexuality, Gender, Gender and Sexuality, Feminist Theory, Religion and Sexuality, History of Race and Ethnicity, History of Childhood, Civil Rights (History), American Religion, North American Religions, Women's Studies, and Jewish Studiesedit
- I am currently a visiting fellow at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion and a lecturer in the Pro... moreI am currently a visiting fellow at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion and a lecturer in the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
I am also Managing Editor (North America) of Notches: (re)marks on the history of sexuality <notchesblog.com>.
Say hello to me at gfrank at princeton dot edu.
My research on the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, religion and popular culture has appeared in The Journal of the History of Sexuality, Gender and History and The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture.
I am co-editor of a forthcoming anthology, Devotions and Desires: Histories of Sexuality and Religion in the 20th Century United States. I also am a contributing editor for Notches, a blog intended to get folks inside and outside of the academy thinking critically about the history of sexuality.
My teaching engages the historical meanings of race, gender and sexuality and how it has connected with culture and politics in the modern United States.
I am revising my manuscript, Save Our Children: Sexual Politics and Cultural Conservatism in the United States, 1965-1990, which is under contract with University of Pennsylvania Press. Save Our Children uses the prism of child protection to analyze how concerns about endangered and dangerous children played a central role in the rise of conservatism. The book traces the emergence of conservative family values politics and the movement’s coalescence around cultural issues. It argues that conservatism’s skillful bridging of racial, gendered and sexual rhetoric fueled its own ascent as well as the backlash against liberalism. Resistance to feminism, the sexualization of popular culture, the civil rights movement and sexual liberalism, in other words, were articulated through a shared child protection rhetoric. The powerful injunction to protect “our children” brought together broad sets of concerns even as it moved conservative ideas and activists from the margins of American politics to its center while pushing liberal and left-wing social movements rightward.
I am also at work on a second book project Seeking Abortion at Home and Abroad: Reproductive Rights, Religious Politics and the Clergy Consultation Service, 1965-1973. This book explores the religious, legal, medical and transnational history of abortion reform activism and illegal abortion services. The project focuses on the Clergy Consultation Service, the single largest abortion referral service in the United States before Roe v Wade. This group, made up of liberal Protestant ministers, Jewish rabbis and dissident Catholic nuns and priests, organized in forty states and over fifty cities to lobby for the repeal of abortion laws, challenge Catholic anti-abortion activists and to assist women obtain safe abortions.edit
At a moment when “freedom of religion” rhetoric fuels public debate, it is easy to assume that sex and religion have faced each other in pitched battle throughout modern U.S. history. Yet, by tracking the nation’s changing religious and... more
At a moment when “freedom of religion” rhetoric fuels public debate, it is easy to assume that sex and religion have faced each other in pitched battle throughout modern U.S. history. Yet, by tracking the nation’s changing religious and sexual landscapes over the twentieth century, this book challenges that zero-sum account of sexuality locked in a struggle with religion. It shows that religion played a central role in the history of sexuality in the United States, shaping sexual politics, communities, and identities. At the same time, sexuality has left lipstick traces on American religious history. From polyamory to pornography, from birth control to the AIDS epidemic, this book follows religious faiths and practices across a range of sacred spaces: rabbinical seminaries, African American missions, Catholic schools, pagan communes, the YWCA, and much more. What emerges is the shared story of religion and sexuality and how both became wedded to American culture and politics.
The volume, framed by a provocative introduction by Gillian Frank, Bethany Moreton, and Heather R. White and a compelling afterword by John D’Emilio, features essays by Rebecca T. Alpert and Jacob J. Staub, Rebecca L. Davis, Lynne Gerber, Andrea R. Jain, Kathi Kern, Rachel Kranson, James P. McCartin, Samira K. Mehta, Daniel Rivers, Whitney Strub, Aiko Takeuchi-Demirci, Judith Weisenfeld, and Neil J. Young.
The volume, framed by a provocative introduction by Gillian Frank, Bethany Moreton, and Heather R. White and a compelling afterword by John D’Emilio, features essays by Rebecca T. Alpert and Jacob J. Staub, Rebecca L. Davis, Lynne Gerber, Andrea R. Jain, Kathi Kern, Rachel Kranson, James P. McCartin, Samira K. Mehta, Daniel Rivers, Whitney Strub, Aiko Takeuchi-Demirci, Judith Weisenfeld, and Neil J. Young.
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Chances are you’ve never heard of Ruth Wallis, one of the greatest singers, comedians, and performers of sexually suggestive lyrics in the postwar United States. Most of her catalogue remains on vinyl and historians have forgotten her.... more
Chances are you’ve never heard of Ruth Wallis, one of the greatest singers, comedians, and performers of sexually suggestive lyrics in the postwar United States. Most of her catalogue remains on vinyl and historians have forgotten her. But from the 1940s until the early 1970s, Ruth Wallis was a bestselling performer and a mainstay at supper clubs and hotels. At a time when it was legally risky for entertainers to sing about sexuality for profit and pleasure, Ruth sold millions of records that used innuendo to playfully hint at a variety of straight and queer sexual pleasures.
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In the 1980s and 1990s, the San Francisco Metropolitan Community Church wrestled with profound questions: What does it mean to minister a gay church when so many in the congregation are dying from AIDS-related complications and grieving... more
In the 1980s and 1990s, the San Francisco Metropolitan Community Church wrestled with profound questions: What does it mean to minister a gay church when so many in the congregation are dying from AIDS-related complications and grieving the recently dead? How do you have faith during an epidemic? And what does it mean to participate in communion in a community ravaged by a plague?
Research Interests: New Religious Movements, Religion and Sexuality, Sexuality, HIV/AIDS, Gender and Sexuality, and 10 moreGay And Lesbian Studies, Podcasting, History of Sexuality, American Religion, The 1970s and 1980s (U.S. history), Gender and religion (Women s Studies), HIV/AIDS policy, Gay and Lesbian History, Religious Studies, and LGBTQ studies
In the 1970s, Evangelical women published bestselling marriage manuals. These books encouraged millions of American women to have active and exciting sex lives. They also insisted that in order to find happiness, a woman must submit to... more
In the 1970s, Evangelical women published bestselling marriage manuals. These books encouraged millions of American women to have active and exciting sex lives. They also insisted that in order to find happiness, a woman must submit to her husband's divinely ordained authority.
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In 1973, CBS cancelled the top-rated sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie after Jewish religious leaders objected to its positive portrayal of an interfaith marriage. This episode explores the sexual and religious politics of Jewish-Christian... more
In 1973, CBS cancelled the top-rated sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie after Jewish religious leaders objected to its positive portrayal of an interfaith marriage. This episode explores the sexual and religious politics of Jewish-Christian interfaith marriage since WWII.
Research Interests: Jewish Studies, Television Studies, History of Religion, History of Sexuality, Jewish History, and 8 morePopular Culture and Religious Studies, History of Religions, Jewish - Christian Relations, Religion in North America, Interfaith Dialogue, American Religious History, Religious Studies, and Interracial and interfaith families
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In 1975, two years after Roe v Wade, an all white and mostly Catholic jury convicted Dr. Kenneth Edelin, an African American physician, of manslaughter for performing a legal second trimester abortion. His trial transformed the... more
In 1975, two years after Roe v Wade, an all white and mostly Catholic jury convicted Dr. Kenneth Edelin, an African American physician, of manslaughter for performing a legal second trimester abortion. His trial transformed the anti-abortion movement.
https://soundcloud.com/user-197021129/episode-2-abortion-on-trial
https://soundcloud.com/user-197021129/episode-2-abortion-on-trial
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In 1980, gays and lesbians in the U.S. had no legal right to attend high school prom with a same-sex date. Then Aaron Fricke sued his high school and everything changed.
https://soundcloud.com/user-197021129/episode-1-prom-night
https://soundcloud.com/user-197021129/episode-1-prom-night
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Sixty years ago, an illegal abortion killed her. The case made national news. We still have much to learn from her story.
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The conservative idea that civil rights protections sexually endanger women and children in public bathrooms is not new. In fact, conservative sexual thought has been in the toilet since the 1940s. During the World War II era,... more
The conservative idea that civil rights protections sexually endanger women and children in public bathrooms is not new. In fact, conservative sexual thought has been in the toilet since the 1940s. During the World War II era, conservatives began employing the idea that social equality for African-Americans would lead to sexual danger for white women in bathrooms. In the decades since, conservatives used this trope to negate the civil rights claims of women and sexual minorities. Placing Houston’s rejection of HERO within the history of discrimination against racial minorities, sexual minorities, and women reveals a broader pattern: When previously marginalized groups demanded access to public accommodations, conservatives responded with toilet talk to stall these groups’ aspirations for social equality.
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To reflect upon his life and influence, this piece offers some primary sources to begin thinking about David Bowie’s place in the history of sexuality of the 1970s and 1980s.