I write about sexual subcultures in the aftermath of WWII, same-sex sexuality, social media and photography. Together with Shelley E. Rose, I've edited a book in honour of my former PhD mentor Jean Quataert for Berghahn. My monograph, The Queer Art of History appeared in April 2023 with Duke University Press and another collaboratively written book on social media and anti-racist memory in the post-Holocaust will come out with Bloomsbury later this year. I'm currently overseeing two multi-year, SSHRC supported projects. One is a transnational examination of the role of photography in what is sometimes referred to as the Sexual Revolution, that period of legal reform, liberalization of social mores, and change in the latter half of the 20th century. The other, Populist Publics, is a multi-platform big data analysis of the place of historical misremembering in online populism. 

If there is one thing that links my research together, it is that I’m interested in how history is conceptualized and written. Who is absent from the narrative and why? Whose stories are seen as worth collecting in the first place? Whose very being in the world challenges notions of citizenship and belonging, identity, health, and social stability? And how do everyday people write or photograph or text their way back into the conversation? In short, I’m intrigued by how the past is conjured and claimed, how it is used and sometimes abused, and how it's meaning is constantly refashioned to suit contemporary needs.

Professor Jennifer Evans

Department of History

Carleton University

1125 Colonel By Drive

Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6

Canada

jennifer_evans@carleton.ca