Dr. Anna Clark
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Profile
Anna Clark is professor of history at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches the history of imperialism, human rights, and sexuality. She has published widely in the history of sexuality, including Desire: A History of European Sexuality (2008, third 2026), and Alternative Histories of the Self: Sexuality and Secrets (2017). At the University of Richmond, she will be working on a project on Moral Rearmament, a Cold War cult that claimed to criticize imperialism and racism. Her books also include Women’s Silence, Men’s Violence: Sexual Assault in Britain, 1780-1845 (1987), The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (1995), and Scandal: The Sexual Politics of the British Constitution (2003).
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Presentations
“Drink and Sex in the British Empire: Controlling Men or Controlling Women?”
Ada Comstock Distinguished Women Scholars Award Lecture, University of Minnesota, October 28, 2015.
“Better to be an Active Devil than a Crushed Saint”: Edith Ellis, a Lesbian Pioneer of Non-Monogamy and Eugenics”. Newberry Library British Studies Seminar, Feb. 7, 2016
“Rethinking Individualism in the 19th Century,” British History Seminar, Cambridge University, 13 Oct. 2016
“Rage against the Machine: Individuals in the British Empire, with attention to New Zealand.” 27th October 2016, Cultural Geography Department, Cambridge University.
“Rethinking Individualism in the 19th Century,” British History Seminar, Columbia University, Dec. 15, 2017.
“Biopolitics and the Demand for Local Control of Hospitals,” Victoria University History Department seminar, Wellington, NZ, March 31, 2017.
Symposium on my work on “Rage against the Machine: Biopolitics, Individualism and Collectivism in New Zealand and the British Empire,” Victoria University History Department, Wellington, NZ, April 8, 2017.
Masterclass ““Better to be an Active Devil than a Crushed Saint”: Edith Ellis, a Lesbian Pioneer of Non-Monogamy and Eugenics”. Feminist History Seminar, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, April. 21, 2017.
“Rethinking Individualism in the 19th Century: Biopolitics, Individualism and Collectivism in New Zealand and the British Empire,” University of Sydney History Department seminar, April 24, 2017.
"Human Rights and Animal Rights: Local Control of Hospitals in the 1890s British Empire." 17th Annual Casper Lecture. Marquette University, March 24, 2018.
“How a Maori Chief Lost his Land and the New Zealand Unemployed Gained a Paradise,” Plenary lecture, Southern Conference on British History, Nov. 10, 2018, Birmingham, AL.
Democratic Dreams and Broken Promises: Pakeha and Maori Health Care in New Zealand, 1860-1913,” Presidential Address, North American Conference on British Studies, Vancouver, CA, Nov. 16, 2019.
Invited Lecture: “The Democratic Control of Hospitals,” Graduate History Forum, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Feb. 7, 2020.
“Kiss and Tell,” Invited Panel with Dr. Anne Choma and Ty Ginter for Anne Lister Research summit. An online Conference for Anne Lister Research Enthusiasts. Sept. 26 , 2020.
Anne Lister’s Search for Sexual Knowledge 2021
- Feb 5 Workshop in the Comparative History of Women, Gender and Sexuality, UMN.
- March 12 Women’s History Network, Britain (zoom)
- June 11 Women’s History Seminar Institute for Historical Research, University of London.
- C1 April 2, 2023. Anne Lister Society Conference, Halifax, UK. Keynote.
Invited plenary lecture: 3 June, 2025. “Anne Lister: Gender Non-Conforming or Trans,” EL DESORDEN DE GÉNERO/Gender disorder, Center for the study of the Modern Experience, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain.
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Presentations
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Publications
Books
Books: (Refereed)
Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England, 1770-1845, (Routledge Kegan Paul/Pandora, 1987). ACLS Humanities E-book.
The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class, (University of California Press, 1995). British Council Book Prize, NACBS, 1996.
Scandal: The Sexual Politics of the British Constitution (Princeton University Press, 2004).
Desire: A History of European Sexuality (Routledge, 2008). Spanish ed., 2010.
Revised and expanded second edition, Routledge 2019; revised and expand third edition, 2026).
Alternative Histories of the Self: A Cultural History of Sexuality and Secrets (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017; paperback 2019).
Work in Progress:
“Rage against the Machine: Rethinking Individualism and Biopolitics in the British Empire.” This project examines resistance to biopolitical institutions such as workhouses and hospitals in Ireland, New Zealand, England and India, explaining how different versions of individualism were used to reform and/or challenge biopolitical discipline, addressing topics ranging from Maori education, workhouses, to temperance, hospital reform, prostitution, and workmen’s compensation. Estimated submission of manuscript: Dec. 2026.
Edited Books:
History of Suffrage 1760-1867 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2000). Co-edited with Sarah Richardson. 6 volumes of primary sources plus introduction.
Terry Brotherstone, Anna Clark, and Kevin Whelan, eds., These Fissured Isles: Ireland, Scotland and England in 1798 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2005)
Karen Hagemann, Anna Clark and Stefan Dudink, eds., Representing Masculinity (Palgrave Press, 2007).
The History of Sexuality in Europe: A Sourcebook and Reader, (Routledge, 2011).
(with Elizabeth Williams). Major Works in the History of Sexuality (Routledge, 2015). 4 vols with introductions.
(with Elizabeth Williams). Sources and Methods in the History of Sexuality. (Routledge, 2024). Edited Collection.
Journal ArticlesArticles in Refereed Journals:
"The Sexual Crisis and Popular Religion in London, 1770-1820," International Labor and Working-Class History No. 34 (Fall 1988): 55-72.
"The Queen Caroline Affair and the Sexual Politics of Popular Culture," Representations No. 31 (Summer 1990): 47-68.
"The Rhetoric of Chartist Domesticity: Gender, Language, and Class in the 1830s and 1840s," Journal of British Studies Vol. 31, No. 1 (January 1992): 62-88. Selected for the North American Conference on British Studies 75th Anniversary Special Collection, 2025, as one of the thirty articles selected to celebrate the anniversary.
“Anne Lister’s Construction of Lesbian Identity,” Journal of the History of Sexuality Vol. 7, No 1 (July 1996): 23-50.
"Wilkes and d'Eon: The Politics of Masculinity, 1763-1778," Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (1998): 19-48.
"The New Poor Law and the Breadwinner Wage: Competing Interpretations," Journal of Social History, Vol. 34 no. 2 (Dec. 2000): 261-281.
“Women in Public in Eighteenth-Century Britain: The Problem of Periodization,” Wiener Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Neuzeit 1. Heft 2 (Jg. 2001): 60-78.
“Twilight Moments,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 14, 1 /2 (2005).: 139-160.
“Wild Workhouse Girls: Governmentality and the State in 19th Century Ireland,” Journal of Social History, 39, 2 (Winter 2005): 389-410.
“James Hinton and Victorian Individuality: Polygamy and the Sacrifice of the Self,” Victorian Studies Vol. 54, No. 1 (Autumn 2011), pp. 35-61.
Anna Clark and Aaron Windel. "The Early Roots of Liberal Imperialism: "The science of a legislator" in eighteenth-century India." Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 14, no. 2 (2013) (Online-published by Johns Hopkins University Press. 14,770 words) Reedus.
“Humanitarianism, Human Rights and Biopolitics in the British Empire, 1890–1902,” Britain and the World Volume 9, Issue 1 (March 2016): 96-115.
Clark, Anna. "Presidential Address: The 1890s Debate over the Democratic Control of Hospitals in Britain and New Zealand." Journal of British Studies 60, no. 1 (2021): 1-28.
Reprinted Chapters, Excerpts and Articles:
“Anne Lister and the Classics,” Women’s History Notebooks Vol 5, No. 2 (1998): 3-8.
“The Struggle for the Breeches: Conflict in Plebeian Marriage,” reprinted in Richard Golden, ed., The Social Dimension of Western Civilization Vol. 2, 4th ed. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999.
“Anne Lister’s Construction of Lesbian Identity,” in Kim M. Phillips and Barry Reay, eds., Sexualities in History: A Reader (New York and London: Routledge, 2002).
“The Struggle over the Gender Division of Labor,” from The Struggle for the Breeches in Fiona Montgomery and Christina Collette, The European Women’s History Reader (Routledge, 2002).
Anna Clark, Kathleen Canning, Sonya Rose and Marianna Valverde, Roundtable, “Gender/History/ Women’s History: Is feminist scholarship losing its critical edge?” in Susan Morgan, The Feminist History Reader (Routledge, 2006).
Anna Clark, “Gender and Radicalism” (excerpt from The Struggle for the Breeches) in Kelly Boyd and Rohan McWilliam, The Victorian Studies Reader (Routledge, 2007).
Minor Articles:
"Rewriting the History of Rape," New Society Aug. 29, 1986.
"Prostitution" and "Sexual Violence" in Victorian Britain: an Encyclopedia, edited by Sally Mitchell (Garland, 1989) pp. 642-645 and 711-712.
Roundtable "Women's History/Gender history: is feminist history losing its critical edge." for Journal of Women's History 5, No. 1 (Spring 1993).
“The Holy Grail of Radical History,” Radical History Review 79 (2001) pp. 87-88.
“Jean Marishall” and “Agnes Lennox” in The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (2006).
“Edward P. Thompson: un punto di vista ancora attuale?” Rivista di storia dell’800 e del ‘900 vol. 11, 4 (October 2008): 759-766. [invited for forum on E.P. Thompson]
“The History of Sexuality,” History Today, Vol. 61 Issue 9 (Sept. 2011): 57-58.
Blom, Ida; Bosch, Mineke; Burton, Antoinette; Clark, Anna; Hagemann, Karen; Mayhall, Laura E. Nym; Offen, Karen; Roberts, Mary Louise. et al. "The Past and Present of European Women's and Gender History." Journal Of Women's History 25, no. 4 (Winter2013 2013): 288-308.
Clark, Anna. "E. P. Thompson and Domestic Service." Labor: Studies In Working Class History of the Americas 10, no. 3 (Fall2013 2013): 41-44.
“Leonore Davidoff: A Tribute to her Work,” Gender & History. Apr2015, Vol. 27 Issue 1, p6-9
Backgrounder: Sex Scandals. BBC History Magazine 4 (Dec. 28, 2017). Commissioned. 2 pages.
C1 Anna Clark, “Anne Lister and the History of Sexuality,” Essay for Adam Matthews online source, Sex and Sexuality, vol. II. (5435 words) 2022
C1“Sexuality in Britain 1780–1914
Routledge Historical Resource on Nineteenth Century British Society. 2023 (not counted for 2022)
“Imperialism and Human Rights,” Thematic peer reviewed essay for Routledge Historical Resources: 19th Century British Empire database.
Book ChaptersBook Chapters:
"Rape or Seduction? A Controversy over Sexual Violence in the 19th Century," in The Sexual Dynamics of History, edited by the London Feminist History Group, London, Pluto Press, 1983.
"The Politics of Seduction in English Popular Culture, 1748-1848," in The Progress of Romance, edited by Jean Radford, London, Routledge Kegan Paul History Workshop Series, 1986.
"Whores and Gossips: Sexual Reputation and the Church Courts in London, 1770-1820," in Current Issues in Women's History, edited by Arina Angerman et al., London, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1989.
"Humanity or Justice? Wifebeating and the Law in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries," in Regulating Womanhood: Historical Essays on Marriage, Motherhood and Sexuality, ed. Carol Smart, (London, Routledge, 1992).
"Gender, Citizenship and the Making of the British Working Class" in Sonya Rose and Laura Frader, eds., Gender, Class and Labor in Modern Europe, (Cornell University Press, 1996.)
"Gender, Class, and Nation: Franchise Reform in the Long Nineteenth Century," in James Vernon, ed., Rereading the Constitution, (Cambridge University Press, 1996).
“Domesticity and the Problem of Wifebeating in 19th Century Britain: Working Class Culture, Law and Politics,” in Shani d’Cruze, ed. Everyday Violence in Britain, 1850-1950: Gender and Class (London: Longman, 2000).
“Gender and Popular Protest,” in Encyclopedia of European Social History, vol.3, ed. Peter Stearns, (Detroit: Scribners, 2001) pp. 279-289.
“Women, the Public Sphere and Politics in the late 18th Century,” in Barbara Taylor and Sarah Knott, ed., Feminism and Enlightenment (London: Palgrave, 2005)
“Women, Politics and Patriotism in the Era of 1798," in Terry Brotherstone, Anna Clark, and Kevin Whelan, eds., These Fissured Isles: Ireland, Scotland and England in 1798 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2005)
“Female Sexuality,” in Deborah Simonton, ed., The Routledge History of Women in Europe (Routledge, 2005).
“Class, Gender, and British Elections,” in Michael T. Davis and Paul Pickering, eds., Unrespectable Radicals? Popular Politics in an Age of Reform (Ashgate, 2007).
Anna Clark, “The Rhetoric of Masculine Citizenship: Concepts and Representations in Modern Political Culture,” in Karen Hagemann, Anna Clark and Stefan Dudink, eds., Representing Masculinity (Palgrave Press, 2007)
“Irish Orphans and the Politics of Domestic Authority,” in Lucy Delap, Ben Griffin and Abigail Wills, eds., The Politics of Domestic Authority in Britain since 1800 (Palgrave Press, 2009).
“The Chevalier d’Eon, Rousseau, and New Ideas of Gender, Sex and the Self in the late Eighteenth Century,” in Simon Burrows, Jonathan Conlin, Russell Goulbourne, and Valerie Mainz, eds, The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds Gender, Espionage and Politics in the Eighteenth Century ( Continuum, 2010).
“Orphans and the Poor Law: Rage against the Machine,” in Virginia Crossman and Peter Gray, eds., Poverty and Welfare in Ireland 1838-1948 (Irish Academic Press, 2011).
"Sexual Crises, Women's History, and the History of Sexuality in Europe," in Pamela S. Nadell and Kate Haulman, eds., Making Women's Histories: Beyond National Perspectives," NYU Press, 2013
“Heterosexuality: Europe and North America,” in Julie Peakman, ed., A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Enlightenment (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2014).
(with Elizabeth Williams). “Sexuality” in Patricia Lorcin, ed., A Cultural History of Western Imperialism: the 20th Century (Bloomsbury, 2018).
“Domestic servants and the labour movement, 1870s-1914: a 'race apart'? in Yann Beliard and Emmanuelle Avril, eds., Labour united and divided from the 1830s to the present Manchester University Press, 2018 pp. 83-98.
Clark, Anna. "Homosexuality and Political Scandal Until 1919." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Published 19 Nov. 2020.
“Anne Lister’s Search for the Anatomy of Sex.” Chapter. In Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, edited by Caroline Gonda and Chris Roulston, 49–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
With Elizabeth Williams, “Introduction,” edited with Elizabeth Williams. Sources and Methods in the History of Sexuality (London: Routledge, 2024). 9 Pfwa.
“Diaries as a Source for the History of Sexuality,” in edited with Elizabeth Williams. Sources and Methods in the History of Sexuality (London: Routledge, 2024). 10 pages. This drew on primary source research into the diaries of Anne Lister, Samuel Pepys, and Roger Casement.
ReviewsEssay Reviews:
“Contested Space: The Public and the Private Spheres in Nineteenth Century Britain,” Journal of British Studies 35, 2 (1996): 269-276.
“Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c. 1780-1840.” Social History 21, 3 (Oct 1996):366-373.
“Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948,” Social History 24, 3 (Oct 1999): 315-9.
“Gender and Politics in the Long Eighteenth Century,” History Workshop Journal 48 (1999):292-297.
“Changing concepts of citizenship: gender, empire, and class.” Journal of British Studies 42, 2 (April 2003): 263-271.
“Domestic Violence, Past and Present,” Journal of Women's History, Vol. 23 Issue 3 (Fall 2011): 193-202.
Book Reviews:
The diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian maidservant. Labor History v. 26 (Summer '85) p. 471-2.
Work, Family, and the State: Child Labour and the Organization of Production in the British
Cotton Industry, 1780-1920. By Per Bolin-Hort, The American Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 2. (Apr. 1991), pp. 510-511.
Road to divorce by Lawrence Stone, The Historian v. 54 (Winter 1992) p. 372.
The Magdalenes by Linda Mahood, Journal of Social History v. 25 (Summer '92) p. 890-1.
Reconstructing the criminal by Martin Wiener, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History v. 23 (Autumn '92) p. 337-8.
The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain, by G. J. Barker-Benfield, The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 4. (Oct. 1993), pp. 1251-1252.
The hanging tree by Vic Gatrell, The Journal of Modern History v. 68 (Dec. '96) p. 983-4.
Gender, sex, and subordination in England, 1500-1800 by Anthony Fletcher, Journal of the History of Sexuality v. 7 (Apr. '97) p. 606-8.
Popular contention in Great Britain, 1758-1834 by Charles Tilly, The Journal of Modern History v. 69 (Sept. '97) p. 586-7.
Chronicling Poverty: The Voices and Strategies of the English Poor, 1640-1840. by Timothy Hitchcock. Social History 24, 3 (Oct 1999): 315-9.
Crowds, Culture, and Politics in Georgian Britain, by Nicholas Rogers. The Journal of Modern History 72, 4 (Dec 2000): 1007.
Crimes of Outrage by Shani d’Cruze, Women's History Review v. 9 no1 (2000) p. 167-8.
Women in British Politics, 1760-1860: The Power of the Petticoat, edited by Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson, Victorian Studies 44, 4 (Summer 2002):718-720.
The Old Poor Law in Scotland: The Experience of Poverty, 1574-1845, by Rosalind Mitchison. Journal of Social History 36, 4 (Summer 2003): 1107-9.
Governing Pleasures: Pornography and Social Change in England, 1815-1914 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002). American Historical Review (Feb. 2003): 256-7.
The Long Sexual Revolution by Hera Cook, American Historical Review (Feb. 2005):222-3.
John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty, by Arthur H. Cash, Journal of Modern History 81, 2 (2009): 403-5.
Master and Servant: Love and Labour in the English Industrial Age by Carolyn Steedman, Journal of Social History (2009): 224-6.
Borderline Citizens: Women, Gender and Political Culture in Britain by Kathryn Gleadle, Social History 36, 1 (2011) 31-32.
Deborah Lutz, Pleasure Bound: Victorian Sex Rebels and the New Eroticism., (review no. 1126) Reviews in History, Institute for Historical Research, University of London.
Review of McNally, Incumbrances, Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Autumn2012, Vol. 43 Issue 2, p310-311
Dagmar Herzog, Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth Century History." European History Quarterly 43, no. 3 (July 2013): 549-551.
"The Making of British Socialism." Journal Of Modern History 85, no. 3 (September 2013): 684-685.
"The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution." Bulletin Of the History of Medicine 87, no. 1 (Spring2013 2013): 123-124.
Family Secrets: Shame and Privacy in Modern Britain, by Deborah Cohen; Victorian Studies, Autumn 2014 (57.1): 131-133.
The Political Worlds of Women: Gender and Politics in Nineteenth Century Britain, by Sarah Richardson, Victorian Studies (Autumn 2015): p. 118-9.
Pathological Bodies: Medicine and Political Culture. Bulletin Of the History of Medicine 90, no. 2 (2016): 337-33
Mark Doyle, Communal Violence in the British Empire. 2017.
Kirsten McKenzie, Imperial Underworld: An Escaped Convict and the Transformation of the British Colonial Order [2017] 4:1 law&history.
G. Cocks. Visions of Sodom: Religion, Homoerotic Desire, and the End of the World in England, c. 1550–1850. American Historical Review June 2018.
Clark, Anna. “The British Welfare Revolution, 1906–14. By JohnCooper. (London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. Pp. vi, 362. $114.00.).” Historian 80, no. 4 (Winter 2018): 855–57
Women and the Great Hunger and Relocated Memories: The Great Famine in Irish and Diaspora Fiction, 1846-1870, Victorian Studies Autumn 2018 (61.1).
Clark, Anna. “An Artisan Intellectual: James Carter and the Rise of Modern Britain, 1792–1853 by Christopher Ferguson (Review).” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 42, no. 2 (April 2019): 397–400.C1
Anna Clark, Penelope Ismay. Trust among Strangers: Friendly Societies in Modern Britain., The American Historical Review, Volume 126, Issue 1, March 2021, Pages 382–383.
Book review: Clark, Anna. 2022. “Trials of the Self: Murder, Mayhem and the Remaking of the Mind, 1750–1830: By Elwin Hofman, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2021, x + 248 Pp., £70, (Hardback), ISBN 9781526153149.” Cultural & Social History 19 (2): 212–14. C