Northern Illinois University
Department of History
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Current Research

My current research focuses on the histories of LGBTQ youth in the twentieth-century United States. I am working on a book-length project historicizing queer girlhoods, entitled "I was a Future Lesbian: the Lives of Queer Girls, 1945-1985," as well as an edited volume of letters sent to a young gay prisoner, entitled "Dear Robert: Persistence, Violence, and Gay Life in the 1980s."

Major Publications

• "'Your Young Lesbian Sisters': Queer Girls' Voices in the Liberation Era, 1970-1986," Girlhood Studies, special issue on "Queering Girlhoods," Vol. 12 No. 1 (March 2019).
• Amanda Littauer and Diane Johns, "Carl Wittman, Dance Master," in Queer Objects, Chris Brickell and Judith Collards, eds. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2019.
• Amanda Littauer and Diane Johns, "The L-Word Quilt," in Queer Objects, Chris Brickell and Judith Collards, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019.
• "Apex of Heterosexuality," in Don Romesburg, ed., Routledge History of Queer America. Routledge, 2018.
• Bad Girls: Young Women, Sex, and Rebellion before the Sixties. Gender and American Culture Series. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
• "Scouts, Tomboys, and the History of Girls and Girlhood," Journal of Women's History Vol. 26, No. 4 (2014): 272-181.
• "‘Someone to Love': Teen Girls' Same-Sex Desire in the 1950s United States," in Queer 1950s: Locating Sexual Cultures in the West, Heike Bauer and Matt Cook, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
• "The B-girl Evil: Bureaucracy, Sexuality, and the Menace of Bar-room Vice in Postwar California," Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 12, No. 2 (April 2003): 171-204.
• Review of Marilyn Hegarty, Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotutes, Journal of the History of Sexuality Vol. 21, No. 2 (May 2012): 339.
• Review of Carolyn E. Cocca, Jailbait: The Politics of Statutory Rape Law in the United States, H-Childhood, H-Net Reviews, November, 2007.
• "Femme Histories Roundtable—Part 1." NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality. February 16, 2017.
• "Femme Histories Roundtable—Part 2." NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality. February 23, 2017.
• "Bad Girls: A Student Interview with Amanda Littauer." NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality. July 26, 2016.
• "Sex on the Home Front: Venereal Disease and the Topography of Heterosexuality." NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality. April 5, 2016.
• "'What can I do to be normal?’ Queer Female Desire in Letters to Dr. Alfred Kinsey." NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality.  August 20, 2015. 

Courses Taught

• HIST 260 - American History to 1865 
• HIST 261 - American History Since 1865 
• HIST 367 - U.S. LGBT History
• HIST 369 - U.S. Women’s History 
• HIST 495 - Senior Thesis
• HIST 498 - American Girlhoods
• HIST 594 - Oral History Methods
• HIST 7xx - U.S. Women’s and Gender History Reading Seminar 
• HIST 7xx - Race, Gender, and Sexuality Reading Seminar
• WGSS 101 - Introduction to Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
• WGSS 350 - LGBTQ+ Studies
• WGSS 432/605 - Feminist and Queer Theories 
• WGSS 610 - Research in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies  

Institutional Affiliations

• Elected co-chair, 2015-2018, Committee on LGBT History, an independent 501c3 organization and an affiliate of the American Historical Association.