Simmons College

Sarah Leonard is an Associate Professor of History and director of the graduate program in Gender/Cultural Studies.  Trained as a cultural historian and as a historian of gender and modern Germany, she is interested in the advantages and challenges of fusing theory and empirical research.  Her essay, "Pornography, Obscenity, and the Historian," published in The Modern History of Sexuality (Palgrave, 2005) explores the process through which historians came to see sexuality and obscenity as topics worthy of serious study.  She is finishing a book-length project on the history of obscenity in modern Germany entitled "Fragile Minds, Vulnerable Souls: Print Culture, Modernity, and the Invention of Obscenity Law in the German States, 1815-1890."  During the academic year 2002-2003, she pursued research on this project funded by a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania's Humanities Forum.  Professor Leonard teaches courses on modern European history, cultural and intellectual history, cultural theory, and German history.

Photo credit: Len Rubenstein