Sarah L. Leonard Email and Phone Number

Sarah L. Leonard is a historian, author, and program director. She received her PhD in history from Brown University in 2001, specializing in modern Germany and women's and gender history. Her research interests include early photography, the history of emotions, and queer histories. In 2020-2021, she was the founding Chair of the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Cultural Studies at Simmons University, and she served as Program Director for the MA program in Gender and Cultural Studies. She currently co-directs the Simmons dual degree MA/MLIS program in Archives and History. Before coming to Simmons, Sarah researched privacy law at the Center for Social and Legal Research in Hackensack, NJ, and she worked in the NYC office of the German art and rare book auction house Hauswedell & Nolte. Her book, Fragile Minds and Vulnerable Souls: The Matter of Obscenity in Nineteenth-Century Germany, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2015. Her research has been supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).