| University of Delaware | 207 John Munroe Hall | Newark, DE 19716 | <div class="ExternalClass20BE36A39581407E8C1522DC03DE5C4B"><p></p><p style="background-color:white;margin-bottom:0px;">
<span style="font-size:15px;">Rebecca L. Davis specializes in the
histories of gender, sexuality, and religion in the United States. She
received her B.A. in 1998 and her Ph.D. in 2006, both from Yale
University. Before joining UD’s history department in the
fall of 2007, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton’s Center
for the Study for Religion. In her academic research and teaching,
Professor Davis is especially interested in the moments when private
thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs become part of a
public conversation, whether those ideas concern ideals of marriage,
sex, faith, identity, or politics. She is the author of <em>More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss</em> (Harvard University Press, 2010) and of <em>Public Confessions: The
Religious Conversions that Changed American Politics </em>(University of North Carolina Press, 2021). In addition, with Dr. Michele Mitchell, she is co-editor of <em>Heterosexual Histories</em> (New
York University Press, 2021). </span><span style="font-size:15px;">Her current book project is a single-volume history of sex in America, with Liveright Press.</span></p><p style="background-color:white;margin-bottom:0px;">
<span style="font-size:15px;">Prof. Davis is a 2011-2012 recipient of the LGBT Religious History Award from the <a href="http://www.lgbtran.org/HistoryAward.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0" style="font-weight:700;">LGBT
Religious Archives Network</a>, for her essay, “’My Homosexuality Is
Getting Worse Every Day‘: Norman Vincent Peale, Psychiatry, and the
Liberal Protestant Response to Same-Sex Desires in Mid-Twentieth-Century
America.” She is a producer of the Sexing History
podcast, a research associate of the Council on Contemporary Families,
and a member of the Scholarly Advisory Board of the Gilder Lehrman
Institute of American History.</span></p><p><br><br></p></div> | <div class="ExternalClass5E19EE7F3CDC4C589400C56034CFFCA4"><h4>Books:</h4><p><em>Heterosexual Histories,</em> co-edited with Michele Mitchell, (New York University Press, 2021)<br></p><p><em>Public Confessions: The Religous Conversions That Changed American Politics</em> (The University of North Carolina Press, 2021)<br></p><p><em>More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss</em> (Harvard University Press, 2010)</p><h4>Articles and Book Chapters</h4><p>“‘These Are a Swinging Bunch of People’: Sammy Davis, Jr., Religious Conversion, and the Color of Jewish Ethnicity.” <em>American Jewish History</em> 100, no. 1 (2016): 25–50.</p><p>“‘My Homosexuality is Getting Worse Every Day’: Norman Vincent Peale, Psychiatry, and the Liberal Protestant Response to Same-Sex Desires in Mid-Twentieth Century America.” In <em>American Christianities: A History of Dominance and Diversity</em>, edited by Catherine Brekus and W. Clark Gilpin, 347-365. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.</p><p>“‘Not Marriage at All, but Simple Harlotry’: The Companionate Marriage Controversy,” <em>Journal of American History </em>94, no. 4 (March 2008): 1137-1163.</p></div> | | | | | Publications | | | | | | rldavis@udel.edu | https://www.history.udel.edu/Documents%20Bios%20CVs/faculty/davis-rl-cv.pdf | Davis, Rebecca | | | <img alt="Professor Rebecca L. Davis" src="/Images%20Bios/faculty/davis.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | Miller Family Early Career Professor of History | Associate Professor | | http://www.rebeccaldavis.com/ | | | | | | | | | | | | |
