Sydni Zastre

Thesis title:

Sexual subjectivities of British mothers, 1840-1939

I am interested in the ways in which women have negotiated the identities of ‘mother’ and of ‘sexual self’: broadly speaking, in locating sex in motherhood and motherhood in sex. I am particularly curious about the interactions between motherhood and sexual deviance, a term which I am currently defining (very broadly) so as to include unmarried, criminal, incarcerated/institutionalised, mentally ill/’insane’, queer, and kinky mothers within its scope. I am very pleased to be working with Prof Houlbrook and Dr Moulton and am looking forward to seeing how this project develops over the next 3 years!

Research Area

Cultural History
History

Publications

‘“Get Yourselves Under Control!”: Youth Sexuality in the Third Reich’, Central Europe Yearbook, 2 (2020) <https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/cey/article/view/2308>
‘“These Devils That Have Many Uses”: Possession and Liberation in Michel de Certeau’s Possession at Loudun’, Constellations, 10.2 (2019) <https://doi.org/10.29173/cons29362>
‘“The Erotic Work of Art Is Also Sacred”: Sex, Fear, and Fascination in the Art of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna’, Constellations, 10.2 (2019) <https://doi.org/10.29173/cons29387>
‘The Agony of Love and Fear: Nazism and the German Queer Community, 1920-1945’, Spectrum, 1, 2018 <https://doi.org/10.29173/spectrum17>

Conferences

Constellations Undergraduate Symposium, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada (March 2019)
- Paper: "'The Erotic Work of Art is Also Sacred': Sex, Fear, and Fascination in the Art of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna" https://doi.org/10.29173/cons29387

Public Engagement & Impact

Glasgow University Feminist Society 'Tuesday Talks,' 15 March 2022: Gender and Genocide
- Gender and the Shoah

Other Research Interests

First World War studies
20th-century Germany
Jewish history
Lesbian studies
Victorian Britain
The Franklin Expedition
Ghosts, spiritualism, hauntology
Literary history
Material culture
Early modern women

Memberships

Women's History Network
Culture and the Reproductive Body Network