The Organization of American Historians (OAH) has named Nora Kassner MA `17, PhD `23, as the recipient of the OAH’s 2024 John D’Emilio LGBTQ History Dissertation Award, which recognizes the best PhD dissertation in U.S. LBGTQ history. The Award was presented during the OAH’s 2024 Conference on American History.
Nora Kassner completed her doctoral degree in History of Public Policy at UC Santa Barbara in 2023. Kassner’s doctoral dissertation titled “Hard to Place: Gay and Lesbian Foster Families and the Remaking of U.S. Family Policy” completed under the direction of her advisor Alice O’Connor, features her research into queer family formation and the historiography of U.S. family policy in the twentieth century.
“I was surprised and deeply honored to receive the 2024 John D’Emilio Award,” said Kassner. “Scholarship on queer and trans communities is often sidelined within the discipline of history, and the Organization of American Historians’ recognition of my work would never have happened without decades of leadership from queer and trans historians. I am particularly grateful to UCSB’s own Leila Rupp, who worked to create the John D’Emilio Award, as well as to my dissertation committee (Alice O’Connor, Eileen Boris, Miroslava Chávez-García, and Stephan Miescher) for shaping my scholarship.”
“Given my history with the D’Emilio award and my collaboration with John on a number of projects, it was a special pleasure to see Nora winning this prestigious award,” said Interim Graduate Dean Leila J. Rupp. “In the tradition of the best work in queer history, Nora’s research not only uncovers an aspect of queer lives, but connects the formation of queer and trans families to large-scale developments in U.S. history. She analyzes the ways gender, sexuality, race, and disability shaped the possibilities for the fostering of queer children and the dynamics of foster family life, in turn engaging with the making and remaking of family policy.” Leila Rupp and John D’Emilio are co-hosts in the podcast series Queer America, an exploration of the history of sexual identity and gender identity in the United States.
Before her graduate school journey at UCSB, Kassner served as a community organizer and remained committed to publicly engaged scholarship throughout her academic career. Since summer 2023, Kassner has worked as Assistant Professor-in-Residence of First Year Seminar and Internships at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This fall, she will begin a position as a career-track lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University.
For the full list of OAH 2024 award and prize recipients, please visit the OAH website.
About the Organization of American Historians
Founded in 1907, the Organization of American Historians (OAH) is the largest professional organization dedicated to the teaching and study of United States history. The mission of the organization is to promote excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history, and to encourage wide discussion of historical questions and the equitable treatment of all practitioners of history. The OAH represents more than 6,000 historians working in the United States and abroad. Members include college and university professors, precollegiate teachers, archivists, museum curators, public historians, students, and a variety of scholars employed in government and the private sector. The OAH is located in Bloomington, Indiana, and is an external agency of Indiana University.