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Lois Banner

Professor Emerita of History
Email lbanner@usc.edu

Research & Practice Areas

Professor of History: Women, gender, cultural history, nineteenth and twentieth century United States; masculinity studies, feminist studies, sexuality and queer studies.

Biography

A graduate of UCLA, with a Master’s Degree in European History and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in American history, Lois Banner was a founder of the field of women’s history in the 1970s. Along with Mary Hartman, she founded the Berkshire Conference in Women’s History, the biennial conference that has been held ever since and that is considered the major event in the field.
She was the first woman president of the American Studies Association, and in 2006 she won the Bode-Pearson prize of the American Studies Association...

Education

  • Ph.D. Columbia University, 1/1970
  • B.A. University of California – Los Angeles
  • M.A. Columbia College

  • Summary Statement of Research Interests

    Professor Banner has published numerous books on the history of women and gender in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She writes biography and cultural history and is now working in areas of feminist studies, queer theory, and masculinity studies. She is currently working on a two-volume study of the history of glamour in Europe and the United States, which includes a separate volume on the image of Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s.

    Research Keywords

    nineteenth century, twentieth century, gender, sexuality, culture, masculinity studies, queer theory

    Research Specialties

    Professor of History: Women, gender, cultural history, nineteenth and twentieth century United States; masculinity studies, feminist studies, sexuality and queer studies.

    Detailed Statement of Research Interests

    Lois Banner has written numerous books on the history of women, gender, culture, and sexuality, including American Beauty (Knopf, 1983); In Full Flower: Aging Women, Power, and Sexuality (Knopf, 1992); and Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle (Knopf, 2003). Dr. Banner is especially known for her work on the history of physical appearance and for her biographies, including in-dept studies of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict.

    At present, she is working on a two volume study of glamour in Europe and the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first volume focuses on the precursors to the look of svelte elegance and passionate style that came to dominate fashion and beauty in the late 1920s through Greta Garbo. It includes detailed primary work in the history of dress, appearance, artistic representations, and popular theater.
    The second volume begins with a detailed study of Marilyn Monroe and broadens out to the history of her image as embedded in the history of glamour. This volume, as all of Prof. Banner’s work, is grounded in archival and primary research. It has also involved oral history and ethnographic work, as Prof. Banner has become involved in the world of Marilyn fans, personal friends, and collectors.

    Prof. Banner also has expertise in the history of religion. Her doctoral dissertation was on religious benevolence and reform in the antebellum era, and she has written a book on spiritual communes in the 1970s and their connection to Christian religions and Islam, in Finding Fran (Columbia Univ. Press, 1989).

    • Bode-Pearson Lifetime Achievement Award, American Studies Association, 2006-2007
    • Mellon Award for Excellence in Mentoring, 2005-2006
    • General Education Teaching Award, 2002-2003
    • USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Senior Faculty Award, 1996
    • USC Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award, 1990
    • USC Associates Award For Creativity In Research And Scholarship, 1989
    • Rockefeller Fellowship Recipient, Humanities Fellow, Rockefeller Foundation, 1978 – 1979
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