Leora Auslander

Professor of European Social History
Founding Director of the Center for Gender Studies
Professor, Committee on Jewish Studies
Ph.D. Brown 1988

FIELD SPECIALTIES

19th and 20th century European Social History with a focus on France and Germany; Material Culture and Consumption; Gender History and Theory; Jewish History; Colonial and Post-colonial Europe.

BIOGRAPHY

My research and teaching are in the fields of material culture, the history of consumerism, gender history and theory, social theory and its relation to social history, the history and theory of the everyday, of citizenship, of the nation, and most recently, of Jewish history. The primary national focus of my research is modern France, but I currently completing a book in which a comparison of England, France and colonial America is key and am working on another which engages German history in the twentieth century. Finally, although I have not yet published in this area, I maintain and active interest and regularly teach materials on the history of European imperialism and colonialism and have plans for a future project on the architectural and urban history of Dakar.

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PUBLICATIONS

My publications in the domain of material culture and the histories of production and consumption include: Taste and Power: Furnishing Modern France (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1996); "Perceptions of Beauty and the Problem of Consciousness," in Lenard Berlanstein, ed. Rethinking Labor History (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1993); "After the Revolution: Recycling Ancien Régime Style in the Nineteenth Century," in Bryant T. Ragan and Elizabeth Williams, eds. Re-creating Authority in Revolutionary France, (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), pp. 144-174; "The Gendering of Consumer Practices in Nineteenth-Century France," in Victoria de Grazia and Ellen Furlough, eds. Sex of Things: Essays on Gender and Consumption (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 79-112; “Regeneration through the Everyday? Furniture in Revolutionary Paris,” in a special issue of Art History (vol. 28:1, Spring 2005), ed. Katie Scott, and; “Beyond Words,” American Historical Review October, 2005, as well as two book-length works in progress: Cultural Revolutions and The Everyday of Modern Citizenship: France and Germany 1918-1940.

My work on material culture, post-colonialism, and everyday politics in contemporary Europe includes two essays: "'Sambo' in Paris: Race and Racism in the Iconography of the Everyday," (co-authored with Tom Holt) in Susan Peabody and Tyler Stovall, eds. The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France, (Raleigh, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002) and "Bavarian Crucifixes and French Headscarves: Religious Practices and the Postmodern European State," Cultural Dynamics 12/3 (2000): 183-209.

My most recent area of research is at the intersection of Jewish history and material culture. Some early thoughts on those questions may be found in: "'Jewish Taste'? Jews, and the aesthetics of everyday life in Paris and Berlin, 1933-1942," in Rudy Koshar, ed. Histories of Leisure (Oxford: Berg Press, 2002), pp. 299-318. That reflection has taken a somewhat different turn in: “Resisting Context: The Spiritual Objects of Tobi Kahn,” in Objects of the Spirit: Ritual and the Art of Tobi Kahn, ed. Emily Bilski (New York: Avoda/Hudson Hills, 2004) pp. 71-78 and “Coming Home? Jews in Postwar Paris,” Journal of Contemporary History 40/2 (2005): 237-259.

My work in the field of feminist history and gender studies includes: Différence des sexes et protection sociale (XIXe-XXe siecles), a co-edited volume with Michelle Zancarini-Fournel (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 1995); "Feminist Theory and Social History: Explorations in the Politics of Identity," Radical History Review 53 (Fall 1992): 158-176; "Do Women's + Feminist + Men's + Lesbian and Gay + Queer Studies = Gender Studies?" differences 9/3 (Fall 1997):1-30; Le genre de la nation. Fall, 2000 issue of Clio: Histoire, femmes et sociétés on gender, citizenship and the nation, co-edited (with Michelle Zancarini-Fournel); "Women's Suffrage, Citizenship Law and National Identity: Gendering the Nation-State in France and Germany,1871-1918,” in Patricia Grimshaw, Katie Holmes and Marilyn Lake, eds. Women's Rights and Human Rights: International Historical Perspectives (London: Macmillan, 2001), pp. 138-152.

Among the courses I have taught in the last five years are: "Good Taste and the Modern Nation;" "Sexuality and Consumption -- Desire and Subjectivity;" (with George Chauncey) "Problems in Gender Studies; "Making the French Nation," "Capitalism and Feminism;" (with Norma Field) "The Politics of Gender, Gendering Politics;" "European Social History," and "European Gender History," and "Theories and Practices of the Everyday," (with Harry Harootunian); "Jewish Life in France and Germany," "Gender, Race and Nation in the Atlantic World, 1890-1930," (with Tom Holt) and "Everyday Life in Modern Europe" (with Sheila Fitzpatrick), The Politics of Memory in France and Germany (with Michael Geyer), Europe in the 20th century.

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