Sarah Ernst
Biography
Sarah Ernst (they/them/theirs) is a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate under the advisement of Wolf Gruner. Their current dissertation project looks at queer life before, during, and after the Third Reich, focusing on the experiences of queer Jewish, Sinti/Roma, and disabled persons. Outside of this, their research interests include 20th-century queer history in Europe and its transnational relationship with the United States, disability history/history of madness, and cultural history.
Sarah received their B.A. in History and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies in 2020 from Brandeis University. While there, they completed a Senior Honors Thesis under the supervision of Dr. Hannah Weiss Muller entitled, “You Mean Something Absolutely Vital to Me”: An Insight into the Lived Experiences of Female Companions to Hysterics in England in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.” This research looked at hysteria and the personal and social impacts of it for women in non-heteronormative relationships.
Education
- BA Brandeis University
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Summary Statement of Research Interests
I am interested in 20th-century European queer history that explores queer intimacies and communities, with a focus on the entanglement with other identities. I am also interested in a transnational approach that looks at the production of historical writings within and outside heteronormative boundaries.
Research Keywords
Modern Europe; Queer History; Germany; Third Reich (1933-1945); Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Research Specialties
Modern Europe; Queer History; Disability Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Memory Studies; Holocaust and Genocide Studies
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Conference Presentations
- “No One Definitive Life Story”: Archival Traces from Queer Survivors of the Nazi Regime (1933-1945) German Studies Association 50th Annual Conference , 2026-2027
- New Book Roundtable: I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany German Studies Association 50th Annual Conference , 2026-2027
- “I Just Want to Make Someone Happy”: Queer Kinship, Holocaust Survivors, and LGBTQ+ Synagogues, 2026 Queer and Trans History Conference , 2025-2026
- “I Was a Double Alien”: A Study of Queer Emigree Histories of the Third Reich “Love, Sexuality and Intimacy in Exile” – Annual Conference of the Austrian Society for Exile Studie , 2025-2026
- “Strutting like peacocks”: Perceptions of Queerness in Holocaust Video Testimonies German Studies Association 49th Annual Conference , 2025-2026
- “Strutting like peacocks”: Perceptions of Queerness in Holocaust Video Testimonies Queer Pasts: What’s Queer in Queer History? , 2024-2025
- Eick, Plant, Wolff: A Study of Queer (Un)Belonging Among German Jewish Refugees German Studies Association , 2024-2025
- ’Among the Gays, if in groups I feel a bit of an outsider’: Queer Holocaust Survival and Belonging in Annette Eick’s Journals Queer History Conference , 2023-2024
- ’No Kiss’: Hysteria and Sex Panic in the Diaries of Anne Lister (1791-1840) SEX Pan!cs , 2023-2024
- Queer Belonging and Annette Eick German Studies Association , 2023-2024
Other Presentations
- Queer(ing) Holocaust Video Testimonies: Introductions, Explorations, and Reimaginings, 2024 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellow Talk, USC, 2024-2025
- Un)Belonging: Queer Lives in the Holocaust and Beyond, 1933-2000, Histories of Migration – Transatlantic and Global Perspective Forum, Berkeley, California, 2024-2025
- ’Strutting Like Peacocks’: Perceptions of Queerness Through Animal Imagery and Video Testimonies, Animals and the Holocaust Workshop, Oxford, England, 2023-2024
- Queer Stories from the Marginalized in Nazi Germany, Max and Hilde Kochmann Summer School, Brighton, England, 2022-2023
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- CORE 103: Madness, Science, and Society: The Nazi Persecution of the Mentally Ill: From Eugenics to ‘Euthanasia’, Fall 2023
- JS 211: The Holocaust: Other Victims of the Holocaust, Spring 2023
- JS 211: The Holocaust: Women and the Holocaust, Spring 2023
- HIST 104: Modern Europe: Memorialization and Remembrance in Berlin, Fall 2022
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Essay
- (2024). Annette Eick (September 13, 1909 – February 25, 2010). The Pink Triangle Legacies Project.
Journal Article
- (2026). ‘Strutting like peacocks’: animal imagery and perceptions of queerness in Holocaust video testimonies. Patterns of Prejudice.
Magazine/Trade Publication
- Queer Kinship: (Re)discovering Histories of the First LGBTQ+ Synagogue. AJS Perspectives: Rainbow Issue.
Other
- (2024). The (Un)comfortability of Testimonies. USC Center for Advanced Genocide Research.
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- EHRI-ERIC Conney Kristel Fellowship, Spring 2026
- “LGBTQIA+ Community in the Holocaust” Colloquium (Participant), 2024-2025
- German Historical Institute Doctoral Fellowship, 2024-2025
- Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Award (Ilse Hertha Strauss Rothschild Research Awards on Women, Gender and the Holocaust), 2024-2025
- Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship, 2023-2024
- USC Ralph and Jean Hovel Memorial Summer Travel Award, 2023-2024
- HEFNU Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization (Fellow), 2022-2023
- McVicar Scholarship Fund, 2022-2023
- USC Ralph and Jean Hovel Memorial Summer Travel Award, 2022-2023
- Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation Fellow, 2021-2022
- German Historical Institute Thyssen Fellowship, 2021-2022
- USC Ralph and Jean Hovel Memorial Summer Travel Award, 2021-2022
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Committees
- Member, Multidisciplinary Intersectional Approaches to the Study of Violence and Trauma Research and Writing Group, 2021-2022
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Professional Memberships
- German Studies Association, 2023 –
- American Historical Association, 2022 –
- Committee on LGBT History, 2022 –
Other Service to the Profession
- Chair of the panel “Religion, Culture, and Queer and Trans Subjectivity” at the 2026 Queer and Trans History Conference (University of Michigan)., Spring 2026
- Chair of the panel “Forcible Adoption and Transfer of Children” at the 2022 “Mass Violence and Its Lasting Impact on Indigenous Peoples: The Case of the Americas and Australia/Pacific Region” conference (USC)., Fall 2023
- Chair of the panel “Informal Knowledge Distribution” at the 2022 “Knowledge on the Move: Information Networks During and After the Holocaust” workshop (USC)., Spring 2022