Brandeis Professor Susan S. Lanser

The Sexuality of History

Thursday, March 6 @ 5:00PM

Brandeis University Women's and Gender Studies Program
Distinguished Faculty Lecture

Early modern Europe saw a surge of interest in "lesbian" desires and relationships. In genres as diverse as poems, plays, scientific treatises and travelers' tales, female relations became a flashpoint in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe for grappling with challenges to social structures and beliefs. Lanser's talk will ask not only what history can tell us about sexuality and gender, but what sexuality and gender can tell us about history.

Susan S. Lanser is Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Women's and Gender Studies at Brandeis University. A scholar of narrative, gender, sexuality, and eighteenth century culture, she chaired the Women's and Gender Studies Program from 2001 until 2007.