Dr. Gillian Frank

Assistant Professor in the History of the Modern United States

Research Interests

My research focuses on the histories of gender and sexuality in postwar US culture and politics, especially as they intersect with religion and race. I study the religious commitments, popular cultures and political practices of progressive movements and reactionary counter-movements. 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.

I am currently completing my manuscript A Sacred Choice: Liberal Religion and the Struggle for Abortion Before Roe v Wade (forthcoming UNC Press). Through my column at the Revealer, "More Than Missionary," I regularly write about the intertwined histories of religion and reproductive rights. You can listen to my podcast Sexing History, which explores how the history of sexuality shapes our present, wherever you stream your shows.

Select Publications
Books

Devotions and Desires: Histories of Religion and Sexuality in the 20th Century United States (co-edited with Bethany Moreton and Heather White). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2018.

Articles/Book Chapters

"The Pastoral Was Political: Religious Rights and Reproductive Freedom Before Roe," Journal of the American Academy of Religion (forthcoming)
"The Miseries and Heartbreaks of Backstreet Abortion," with Ronit Stahl in The Nursing Clio Reader. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. (forthcoming)
"What Everyone Gets Wrong About Evangelicals and Abortion," with Neil J. Young in Fighting Mad: Resisting the End of Roe v Wade. eds. Krystal Littlejohn and Ricki Solinger. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2024.
"Doing it With Sound: Podcasting the History of Sexuality," American Historical Review (June 2023)
"Introduction: Sexuality in American Jewish History" (with Rachel Kranson and Jonathan Krasner), American Jewish History, 105 no. 1 (Spring 2021).
"Think About that Special Man on His Way Home to You: Conservative Women and the Politics of Marriage in the 1970s," Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: The Destabilization of American Culture and Politics in the 1970s. eds. Carolyn Bronstein and Whitney Strub. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016.
"The Colour of the Unborn: Anti-Abortion and Anti-Busing Politics in Michigan, 1967-1973." Gender and History, 26, no. 2 (August 2014): 351-378.
"'The Civil Rights of Parents': Race and Conservative Politics in Anita Bryant's Campaign Against Gay Rights in 1970s Florida," The Journal of the History of Sexuality, 22, no. 1 (January 2013): 126-160.
"A Kiss is Never Just a Kiss: Introducing Students to the History of Sexuality in the United States," Syllabus Journal. 1 no. 2 (October 2012).
"'Ideals of stability, order and fidelity': The Love Dare Phenomenon, Convergence Culture and the Marriage Movement," Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 23, no. 3 (Summer 2011): 118-138.
"Discophobia: Anti-Gay Prejudice and the 1979 Backlash Against Disco," Journal of the History of Sexuality. 16, no. 2 (May 2007): 276-306.
Reprinted in: Queers in American Popular Culture (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010).

Teaching and Supervision

I welcome proposals from PhD students interested in histories of sexuality, gender, religion and race in the modern United States. This academic year (2024-2025) I am teaching undergraduate level classes on Reproductive Politics, The Sexual Revolution, and American Politics and Culture, 1939-1989. I am also teaching the MA level class on Gender Theory for the Program in Gender and Women's Studies.