Nina Kushner

Nina Kushner is an Associate Professor of History at Clark University specializing in early modern and eighteenth-century European social and cultural history, particularly in France, with a focus on women, gender, and sexuality. She holds a Ph.D. in European History from Columbia University (2005) and taught previously at the College of Charleston. Her research explores elite prostitution in eighteenth-century Paris, marital norms, and French sexual historiography. She co-edited Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France (2015) and French Histories of Sexuality (2023), and is co-authoring a monograph on adultery in Old Regime France. Her work bridges legal records, cultural texts, and gender theory.

Education: B.A. in History and Religion (Dartmouth College, 1990); M.A. and Ph.D. in European History (Columbia University, 1994 and 2005). Post-academic roles include Peace Corps service in West Africa and tour guiding in NYC.

Research interests span elite prostitution networks, policing of sexuality, gendered labor practices, and the intersection of legal frameworks with societal norms. Current projects include a six-volume series A Cultural History of Prostitution in the West and the Handbook of the History of Sexuality.

Teaching emphasizes early modern Europe, witchcraft history, and the history of policing. Her scholarship often addresses how marginalized groups navigated sociolegal systems, with a particular focus on women’s agency and vulnerability in premodern France.

Public engagement includes analyses of contemporary issues like science denialism in U.S. political discourse, linking historical patterns of expertise rejection to current crises. She has been featured in France Culture discussions on science politicization.