Judith Surkis

Surkis is associate professor of history and literature and history at Harvard. She focuses on modern French cultural and intellectual history; gender, sexuality and empire; and interdisciplinarity. Her book Sexing the Citizen: Morality and Masculinity in France, 1870–1920 (2006) explains how masculine sexuality was central to republican citizenship and social order. Her current book, Scandalous Subjects: Intimacy and Indecency in France and French Algeria, 1830–1930, traces the place of sexual scandals, from public indecency to indigenous polygamy, in the constitution of liberal subjectivity, legal exceptionalism and colonial power. She is also co-editing a volume entitled Sexual Boundaries and European Identities with Eric Fassin. She co-chairs seminars in Intellectual and CulturalHistory and French Politics, Culture, and Society.