KATHERINE FRANK
Faculty Associate: Professor of Anthropology
Adjunct Faculty
College of the Atlantic, 105 Eden Street, Bar Harbor, ME 04609
Honorary Research Fellow
Department of Sociology
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities (CARAS)
Education
Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology, Duke University, 1999.
Dissertation: Intimate Labors: Masculinity, Consumption, and Authenticity in Five Gentleman’s Clubs.
Advisor: Dr. Anne Allison
M.A. Cultural Anthropology, Duke University, 1997
Certificate in Women’s Studies, 1997, Duke University
B.A. magna cum laude in General Studies, University of Michigan, 1991.
Angell Scholar, 6 terms; Phi Beta Kappa; William J. Branstrom Freshman Prize.
Publications
Nonfiction/Academic
Books
Flesh for Fantasy: Producing and Consuming Exotic Dance. (2006). With R. Danielle Egan and M. Lisa Johnson. Thunder’s Mouth Press.
G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.
Articles
“‘Not Gay but Not Homophobic’: Male Sexuality and Homophobia in the Lifestyle.” (forthcoming 2008) Sexualities 11(4).
“Privacy and intimacy for a healthy relationship.” (2008). (online for www.ifriends.com/loveandhealth).
“Thinking critically about strip club research.” (2007) Sexualities 10(4): 501-517.
“Playcouples in Paradise: Touristic Sexuality and Lifestyle Travel” (2007) Love and Globalization: Transformations of Intimacy in the Contemporary World. Edited by Mark B. Padilla, Jennifer S. Hirsch, Miguel Munoz-Laboy, Robert E. Sember, and Richard G. Parker. Vanderbilt University Press.
“Reflections on the Bachelor: Feminism, Monogamy, and Televised Harem Fantasies.” (forthcoming 2007) Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts It In a Box. Edited by M. Lisa Johnson. London: I. B. Tauris.
“Agency.” (2006) Anthropological Theory 6(3): 281-302.
“HBR Case Commentary for HBR Case Study: How Low Will You Go?” (2006) Harvard Business Review, April 2006, pgs. 33-44.
“Keeping Her Off the Pole: Creating Sexual Value in a Secular Society.” (2006). In Flesh for Fantasy: Producing and Consuming Exotic Dance, with R. Danielle Egan and M. Lisa Johnson. Thunder’s Mouth Press.
“Body Talk: Revelations of Self and Body in Contemporary Strip Clubs.” (2005). In Dirt, Undress, and Difference: Critical Perspectives on the Body’s Surface, edited by Adeline Masquelier. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
“Exploring the Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers in Relation to Legal Regulations.” (2005) Archives of Sexual Behavior. 34 (5): 487-504.
“Attempts at a Feminist and Interdisciplinary Conversation about Strip Clubs.” (2005). With R. Danielle Egan. Deviant Behavior. 26 (4): 297-320.
Editor, Special Issue: Feminism and Psychological Anthropology. (2004). Ethos, 32(4). (with the Feminism and Psychological Anthropology Collective).
“Monogamy in the New Millennium.” (2004). (online for an informational website: www.ifriends.com/loveandhealth).
“The Bachelor: Harem Fantasies for Mainstream Americans.” (2004). American Sexuality Magazine, 2(7). (online).
“Adult Entertainment as Empowerment for Women.” (2004). (online for an informational website: www.ifriends/loveandhealth.com)
“Strip Clubs” and “Strippers.” (2004). Men and Masculinities: A Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopedia. Edited by Michael Kimmel and Amy Aronson. New York: ABC-CLIO.
“Strip Clubs and Their Regulars.” (2003). American Sexuality Magazine, 1(4). (online)
“Just Trying to Relax: Masculinity, Masculinizing Practices, and Strip Club Regulars.” (2003) The Journal of Sex Research: 40(1): 61-75.
“Starving, Stripping, and Other Ambiguous Pleasures.” (2002) In Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire, edited by Merri Lisa Johnson. Four Walls, Eight Windows.
“The Management of Hunger: Using Fiction in Writing Anthropology.” Qualitative Inquiry 6:4, December 2000.
“The Production of Identity and the Negotiation of Intimacy in a Gentleman’s Club,” Sexualities; 1(2): 175-201, 1998.
Book Reviews
Review of Badfellas: Crime, Tradition, and New Masculinity by Simon Winlow. American Ethnologist, 30(4), November 2003.
Review of Men Who Sell Sex by Peter Aggleton. Humanity and Society 23(3), October 1999.
Review of Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labour by Wendy Chapkis. Sexualities 1(3): 377, 1998.
Review of Moral Dilemmas of Feminism by Laurie Shrage. Humanity and Society 20(1): 108-110, 1995.
Fiction
“Escapes” (2001). Special Issue of Feminist Review on sex work. (short fiction dealing with issues of power, resistance, and subjectivity through the eyes of an outcall stripper)
“Strawberries” Gauntlet, vol. 17, May 1999. (short fiction that explores the appeal of the sex industry for a working class woman and the intimacy between a dancer and her regular customer)
“Husbands.” Black Sheets, vol. 14, 1999. (a short story about the relationship between two women negotiating their desire for each other and their dreams for a heteronormative life)
“Fakes.” Vixen, June issue, 1998. (short fiction exploring issues of authenticity, performance, and intimacy through a narrative about a dancer’s first night in a new strip club)
“Seeing Me.” The Crescent Review, 13(2), 1995. (a short story about a college woman with bulimia that poses questions about sexuality, subjectivity, objectification, and visibility)
“Cleaning.” The Sonora Review, spring, 1994. (a story about a bisexual, Mexican working-class woman who cleans the locker rooms at an upscale spa)
Excerpted Articles and Reprints
“Strip Clubs and Their Regulars.” (2003). American Sexuality Magazine, 1(4). Reprinted in G. Herdt and C. Howe (2007) 21st Century Sexualities: Contemporary Issues in Health, Education, and Rights. New York: Routledge.
“Keeping Her Off the Pole: Creating Sexual Value in a Secular Society” in Spread, issue 4 (2005).
“The Production of Identity and the Negotiation of Intimacy in a Gentleman’s Club” reprinted in Sexualities: Identities, Behaviors, and Society (2004), edited by Michael Kimmel and Rebecca Plante, Oxford University Press.
“‘Just Trying to Relax’: Masculinity, Masculinizing Practices, and Strip Club Regulars” reprinted in Sociology: Windows on Society (2005), edited by Robert H. Lauer and Jeanette C. Laurer.
Manuscripts Forthcoming/Under Review/In Progress
Levant, R. F., Smalley, K. B., David, K., Angeny, C., Williams, C., Barto, K., Frank, K., & Richmond, K. (2007). Initial validation of the Female Nonrelational Sexuality Questionaire (in preparation).
“Unmeasured Extramarital Behavior and the Meaning of ‘Infidelity’ in Survey Responses.” In progress.
“The Meaning of Monogamy.” Paper based on survey data on the boundaries of monogamy for married couples; with John DeLamater. In progress.
“Sex, Shame, and Entertainment.” Article prepared for a special issue of Ethnos on disgust.
“Feminism, Heterosexuality, and Nonmonogamy.” An article on the need to revisit feminist analyses of nonmonogamy in light of contemporary “Lifestyle” practices and identities. Under review.
“Crisis of Connection: The Life History of an Anorexic.” Manuscript in progress.
“Are you asking if I’m Butch? The Use of the term ‘Gender’ in Sociological Research.” Manuscript in progress.
Workshops
Forms and Transformations of Monogamy, Intimacy, and Sexuality. Conducted at the 30th Annual International Conference on the Psychology of the Self with Alan Kindler, MBBS, FRCPC; Rosalind Chaplin Kindler, MFA; and Joseph Lictenberg, MD. October 10-13th, 2007, Los Angeles, CA.
Selected Television, Film and Radio Appearances
Appearance in “Gentleman’s Clubs Revealed,” A & E television, 2007.
Guest on “To the Best of Our Knowledge” from Wisconsin Public Radio, broadcast by National Public Radio in December, 2003 (“Cultures of Desire”).
Guest on the Eliza Sonneland show, KTSA, San Antonio, on December 2, 2003.
Interviewed by the Discovery Channel for scheduled programs on strip clubs and on polyamory, November, 2003.
Interviewed by Dr. Maryanne Galvin for The Pursuit of Pleasure (2004), a documentary on sex positive feminism in the U.S., November, 2003.
Guest on “Derek and Romaine,” Sirius Radio OutQ stream 149. May 16th, 2003.
Interviewed for a documentary on the history of gentleman’s clubs in the United States for the History Channel. March 15th, 2003.
Interviewed on the Icicle News Hour; radio show. November 11th, 2002.
Quoted and interviewed in magazines and newspapers: Jane, Men’s Fitness, Bitch, Cosmo, Mangazine/China, The Denver Post, The Washington Post, Suite Magazine, Penthouse, etc.
Invited Talks
“Sex & The City of Politics: A panel presentation on issues of sex, sexuality, gender, and power.” The Washington Association of Professional Anthropology, April 8th, 2008.
“Strip Clubs, Fantasy, and the Dark Side of Erotics.” Keynote address at the inaugural conference of the Sexuality & Violence Research Circle sponsored by the International Institute at U-WI, Madison, October 25th, 2007.
“Transcending the Charmed Circle: A conversation about marriage, sexual pleasure, and citizenship” with Katherine Frank and Michelle Marzullo. October 2nd, 2007 at American University. College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Student Council War and Peace Speakers’ Series.
“The Meaning of Monogamy.” Meeting of the Sexuality Research Group, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison. April 21st, 2006.
“Producing and Consuming Sexual Desire: Workers, Customers, and Strip Club Culture.” Invited speaker at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with Danielle Egan. Co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology, the Women’s Studies Department, Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, the Media Studies Department, and the Department of Counseling. March 9th, 2006.
“Touristic Sexuality and Lifestyle Events.” Invited speaker at Duke University, Department of Cultural Anthropology for “Ethnographies of the Intimate.” November, 2005.
“Love, Sex, and Monogamy in Modern American Marriages.” Invited speaker at Virginia Commonwealth University for the Department of Anthropology and the Honors Program speakers’ series on “Crossing Boundaries.” February 15th, 2005.
“Preliminary Findings: Monogamy in the New Millennium.” Meeting of the Sexuality Research Group, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison. December 3, 2004.
“Feminism, Heterosexuality, and Nonmonogamy.” Invited participant at the conference, Heterosexuality and Its Discontents, Columbia University, October 1-2, 2004.
Plenary speaker, International Academy of Sex Research. Helsinki, Finland, June 16th – 19th, 2004.
“Playcouples in Paradise: Lifestyles International and the Swinging Convention Scene.” Invited speaker for a panel on Love and Commodification at the “Love and Globalization” conference, Mailman School of Public Health, Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Health, Columbia University, April 30-May 1, 2004.
Visiting Ethnographer, St. Mary’s College of Maryland. November 12 and 13th, 2003.
Panelist: “Theorizing the Spectacle/Theorizing the Social.” St. Lawrence University, April 10th, 2003.
“Sex, Shame, and Entertainment.” Invited speaker at University of Kentucky, April 8th, 2003.
Invited speaker on panel, “Sex and the City” for the New York Historical Society, March 13th, 2003.
“Boys Night Out: Social Class and the Construction of Desire.” Invited speaker at CLASS ACTS: Etiquette, Morality, and the American Middle Class, a conference sponsored by the Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life Emory University, Atlanta, Ga. on February 22, 2002.
“Masculinity and Male Dominance in U. S. Strip Clubs.” Invited talk at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Interdisciplinary Seminar Series. November 11, 1999.
Papers Presented
“Non-Relational Sexuality” Poster and Symposium at the annual meetings of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco, CA, August 17th-20th, 2007.
“Policing Monogamy: Pleasure and Erotics in Marriage.” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association in San Jose, CA, November 16-20, 2006.
“Primetime Harem Fantasies: Marriage, Monogamy, and a bit of Feminist Fanfiction on ABC’s The Bachelor.” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Popular Culture Association. April 13th, 2006.
“Agency.” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Society for Psychological Anthropology as part of a panel on “The Missing Psychology in Anthropology’s Key Words.” April 7th – 10th, 2005.
“Sex, Shame, and Infidelity.” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association in Chicago, IL, Nov. 23rd, 2003. (Panel organized by Katherine Frank and Mark Padilla, “Revisiting Shame and Society.”)
“Agreements and Expectations of Monogamy: Patterns of Non-exclusivity.” Paper presented at the meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality in San Antonio, TX, on Nov. 9th, 2003.
“Modern Fairytales in Reality Television: Fantasies of Love and Commitment in ABC’s ‘The Bachelor.’” Roundtable presented at the Compassionate Love Conference, May 30th- June 2nd, 2003.
“Men, Marriage, and Monogamy.” Paper presented at the Fifth Annual South Carolina Comparative Literature Conference, The Desire of the Analysts: Psychoanalysis and Cultural Criticism in the Twenty-First Century, February 13th – 15th, 2003.
“Authenticity and the Consumption of the Female Body.” Presented at the annual meetings of the National Women’s Studies Association, Las Vegas, NV, on June 14, 2002.
“The Erotics of Disgust: Abjection, Authenticity, and the ‘Anal Sex Explosion’ in Contemporary Heterosexual Pornography.” Presented at the American Anthropological Association annual meetings in Washington D.C., November 28th – December 2nd.
“Hustlers, Pros, and the Girl Next Door: Social Class, Race, and the Consumption of the Authentic Female Body.” Presented at the Biennial meeting of the Society for Psychological Anthropology at Emory University, October 20, 2001.
“The Pursuit of the Fantasy Penis: Bodies, Desires and Ambiguities.” World Congress of Sexology, Paris, France. June 24th- June 28th, 2001.
“Studying Sexuality Through Participant Observation: A Look at Methodology and Anthropology.” Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality annual conference, November 9th-12th, 2000.
“Starving, Stripping, and Other Ambiguous Pleasures.” Southeastern Women’s Studies Association annual conference, April 7-9, 2000.
“Post-Modern Persephone: Money, Eating, and Relationship” Paper presented at the conference Oral Fixations: Cannibalizing Theories, Consuming Cultures at George Washington University, April 4, 1999.
“Marriage, Monogamy, and Fantasy in Strip Clubs and in Psychoanalysis” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association, December 4, 1998.
“Just Trying to Relax: Men, Male Dominance, and Strip Clubs.” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco, CA, 1998.
“Informing Feminist Identities II: A Look at Men’s Use of Feminism.” Paper presented with Lynn Hempel at the meetings of the Southern Sociological Society, New Orleans, LA, 1997.
“The Production of Identity and the Negotiation of Intimacy in a ‘Gentleman’s Club.’” Paper presented at the meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA, November 1996. (Panel organized by Katherine [Murawski] Frank and Haven White: “Embodied and Disembodied: Experiencing Sexualities, Identities, and Desires in the Contemporary United States.”)
“Subjects as Objects: Women’s Experience of Objectification in the Adult Entertainment Industry.” Poster presentation at A Women’s Health Conference, American Psychological Association, September 19, 1996.
“Informing Feminist Identities.” Paper presented with Lynn Hempel at the meetings of the Southern Sociological Society, April, 1996.
“Black is for Fantasy: Using Fiction in Writing Anthropology.” Paper presented at Vertigo: A Conference on Autobiography and Identity, University of North Carolina, March, 15, 1996.
“Coming to Terms with Sex Work.” Paper presented at the Sixth Annual Duke University Women’s Studies Graduate Research Conference, Duke University, October, 1995.
“Objectification and Consciousness: Women’s Views of Self and Power in the Adult Entertainment Industry.” Paper presented with Amy D’Unger at the meetings of the Southern Sociological Society, Atlanta, GA, April, 1995.
Honors, Fellowships, and Grants
Social Science Research Council; Sexuality Research Fellowship Program: grant for two years of postdoctoral research and training, Monogamy in the New Millennium. Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, 2002-2003.
Richard Carley Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship; grant for the completion of the manuscript Stripping Illusions: Revealing Masculinity, Authenticity and the Materiality of Desire from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc. 2000-2001.
Faculty Grant from Sweet Briar College to teach an interdisciplinary course on “Understanding Sexualities” for the Spring 2000 semester, 1999.
Jessie Ball du Pont Predoctoral Fellow in residence at Sweet Briar College, 1998-1999.
Grant from the Lectures Committee at Sweet Briar College to organize a series of campus lectures on alternative ideas and images of the body, 1998.
Recipient of the Ernestine Friedl Research Award, Duke University, 1998.
Social Science Research Council; Sexuality Research Fellowship Program: grant for dissertation research. Intimate Labors: Masculinity, Consumption, and Authenticity in Five Gentleman’s Clubs, 1997-1998.
Grants from the Department of Cultural Anthropology and the Graduate School at Duke University to conduct preliminary fieldwork, 1996.
Women’s Studies Graduate Scholar, Duke University
James B. Duke Fellowship; four years of supplemental support from Duke University, 1994-1999.
Teaching Experience
College of the Atlantic
Professor of Anthropology
Human Studies Courses
Postmodernism. Spring 2002. .
Feminism and Embodiment, Winter 2002.
Ethnographic Research Methods. Fall 2001.
Cultural Studies. Spring 2001.
Love, Utopia, and the Market. Spring 2001.
Global Feminist Theory. Winter 2001.
Theories in Sexuality. Winter 2001, Winter 2002.
American Culture: Race, Class and Gender. Fall 2000.
Independent Studies/Tutorials
Research Project Design, Spring 2002.
Queer Theory, Fall 2001.
Postmodern Social Theory, Fall 2001.
American Ethnographies. Winter 2001.
Ethnography and Representation. Fall 2000.
Other Courses
Human Ecology Core Course. Fall 200l.
Sweet Briar College, Department of Anthropology
Visiting Assistant Professor