Regina Kunzel

American historian and author

Academic
writer
Historian

NationalityAmericanAlma materYale University
Stanford UniversitySubjectGender studies
Queer studiesNotable worksCriminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality (2008)
In the Shadow of Diagnosis: Psychiatric Power and Queer LifeNotable awardsLambda Literary Award for LGBT Studies

Regina Kunzel is an American author, historian, and academic. She is the Larned Professor of History at Yale. Prior to joining the Yale faculty, she held the Doris Stevens Chair at Princeton University, the Paul R. Frenzel Chair at the University of Minnesota, and the Fairleigh Dickinson Chair at Williams College. Her book Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality (University of Chicago Press, 2008) received the American Historical Association’s John Boswell Prize, the Modern Language Association’s Alan Bray Memorial Book Award^[1] and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Studies.^[2]

Early life and education

Regina Kunzel earned her Ph.D. in history from Yale University and her Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University.^[3]

Career

Regina Kunzel began her career in the Department of History at Williams College.^[4] Her work explores histories of gender and sexuality, queer history, the history of psychiatry, and the history of incarceration.^[5] She was a co-editor for the journal Gender & History. With Janice Irvine, she co-edits a book series on sexuality studies for Temple University Press.^[6]

Publications

Books

Kunzel, Regina (1993). Fallen women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890 - 1945. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300065091.
Kunzel, Regina (2008). Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226462264.
Kunzel, Regina, In the Shadow of Diagnosis: Psychiatric Power and Queer Life (University of Chicago Press, 2024)

Journals

Kunzel, Regina G. (1988). "The Professionalization of Benevolence: Evangelicals and Social Workers in the Florence Crittenton Homes, 1915 to 1945". Journal of Social History. 22 (1): 21–43. ISSN 0022-4529.
Kunzel, Regina (December 1995). "Pulp Fictions and Problem Girls: Reading and Rewriting Single Pregnancy in the Postwar United States". The American Historical Review. 100 (5): 1465. doi:10.2307/2169866.
Kunzel, Regina (1 January 2011). "QUEER STUDIES IN QUEER TIMES". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 17 (1): 155–165. doi:10.1215/10642684-2010-026.
Kunzel, Regina (1 May 2014). "The Flourishing of Transgender Studies". TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 1 (1–2): 285–297. doi:10.1215/23289252-2399461.
Kunzel, Regina (2017). "Queer History, Mad History, and the Politics of Health". American Quarterly. 69 (2): 315–319. doi:10.1353/aq.2017.0026.
Kunzel, Regina (1 December 2018). "The Power of Queer History". The American Historical Review. 123 (5): 1560–1582. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhy202.

References

^ Gorelick, Evan (2 February 2022). "Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies continues expansion". Yale Daily News.
^ "Taking Home The Literary Gold". CURVE. 5 September 2013.
^ Hannan, Frances (30 March 2023). "Fellows You Should Know: Women's and Gender Studies". The Institute for Citizens & Scholars.
^ Goetz, Jill. "Women's History Month symposium puts single motherhood in historical perspective | Cornell Chronicle". news.cornell.edu. Cornell Chronicle.
^ Morantz-Sanchez, Regina (16 January 1994). "From Victims to Menaces (Published 1994)". The New York Times.
^ "Regina Kunzel designated the Larned Professor". YaleNews. 23 April 2020.