Cait Parker is a historian of the late-20th-century United States, specializing in gender, sexuality, and social movements, with a focus on the contemporary carceral state. She received her BA in History and MA in English from Radford University in Virginia, where she trained in women’s history, resistance literature, and historical literary criticism. Parker earned her doctoral degree in American Studies from Purdue University, where she examined the intersection of LGBTQ+ activism and the prison abolition movement.
Parker’s interdisciplinary research focuses on activism by incarcerated lesbian and queer women through prison exposés, poetry, visual arts, and the underground press, supplemented with oral histories she conducted with formerly incarcerated political prisoners. Parker was recently awarded the Writers and Artists Grant from the Gay and Lesbian Review, allowing her to publish an article in the publication.
Beyond her primary focus on the history of gender and sexuality in the United States, Parker’s research and teaching interests include political history and the intersection of public history and carceral tourism.