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Susan K. Cahn

Susan K. Cahn, known for her publications on the history of women and sports, teaches in both the Department of History and the Women's Studies program at UB. She is also well known for her other research interests in U.S. women's history, history of sexuality, African-American history, southern history, feminist theory, and LGBQ (Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Queer) studies.

Cahn earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1981. In 1985 she received her master's from the University of Minnesota and her Ph.D. five years later.

Since joining the staff of the History Department in 1990, Cahn has been very active publishing her research. Her critically acclaimed monograph, Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Sports (1994) won the Best Book Award in Sport History category from the North American Society of Sports History.

One reviewer noted:

"Cahn amply demonstrates the importance of sports as a locus for gender definition and conflict, and she ties developments in sports to broader trends such as the expansion of consumer culture. The book is enlivened throughout with colorful quotations that buttress Cahn's compelling conclusions. Her book contains insights and implications that should be of interest to those studying popular culture, women's history, labor history, and issues of race and gender."

-- Barbara Keys, on H-Arete (October, 1996)

Cahn was an external fellow from 1997 to 1998 at the Stanford University Humanities Center for her project, "Coming of Age in the Modern South: Race, Sex and Region in Female Adolescent Lives." Currently, she is in the process of reworking the research she conducted during her fellowship into a manuscript, Sexual Reckonings: Adolescent Girlhood in the Modern South, 1920-1960.

Over the years, she has served as an editorial consultant for many professional journals including: Feminist Studies, Journal of Sports History. In addition, Cahn is on the United States Board of Associate Editors for the Journal of Women's History.


Affiliation(s): History
Record Group(s): 22