Janet Jakobsen Explained

Janet R. Jakobsen is a scholar of gender and sexuality. She is the Claire Tow Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College and is the author of several books focusing on gender and sexuality.^[1]

Biography

Education

Jakobsen attended Dartmouth College for undergrad, where she received her A.B. in philosophy and economics. She received her M.A. at Claremont School of Theology. Jakobsen received her doctorate from Emory University in the Graduate School of Religion. ^[2]

Career

She worked as a policy analyst and organizer in Washington, D.C. and taught at both Wesleyan University and Harvard University and before starting at Barnard. She is the Claire Tow Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College. She served as the Director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW) for 15 years. She has also been Barnard's Dean for Faculty Diversity and Development.

During her time at BCRW, Jakobsen started the web journal Scholar & Feminist Online. Currently, Jakobsen serves as a principal investigator for the Gender Justice and Neoliberal Transformations Working Group, sponsored by BCRW.

Personal Life

Jakobsen's partner was the Wesleyan professor of English and professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies Christina Crosby,^[3] until Crosby's death in 2021. Crosby writes about their life together after Crosby's paralyzing bike accident in her memoir, A Body, Undone: Living on After Great Pain.^[4]

The Sex Obsession: Perversity and Possibility in American Politics

Jakobsen's most recent book, published in 2020 by New York University Press, covers how gender and sexuality repeatedly appear at the center of America political issues. Jakobsen analyzes sexual politics in the first televised presidential debate, the AIDS crisis, the 2010s health care reform issues, #MeToo and more.

The Sex Obsession was a finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Studies.^[5]

Bibliography

Books

• Working Alliances and the Politics of Difference: Diversity and Feminist Ethics (Indiana University Press, 1998)
• Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance with Ann Pellegrini (New York University Press, 2003; Beacon Press, 2004)^{[6] [7] [8]}
• ed. Interventions: Activists and Academics Respond to Violence with Elizabeth Castelli (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)^[9]
• ed. Secularisms, ed. with Ann Pellegrini (Duke University Press, 2008)^[10]
• The Sex Obsession: Perversity and Possibility in American Politics (New York University Press, 2020)

Articles and book chapters

• "Queer Is? Queer Does?: Normativity and Resistance," 4 (1998)
• "Family Values and Working Alliances: The Question of Hate and Public Policy," in Welfare Policy: Feminist Critiques, ed. E. Bounds, P. Brubaker and M. Hobgood (Pilgrim Press, 1999)
• " 'He Has Wronged America and Women': Bill Clinton's Sexual Conservatism," in Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the National Interest, eds. Lisa Duggan and Lauren Berlant (New York University Press, 2001)
• "Can Homosexuals End Western Civilization as We Know It?: Family Values in a Global Economy," in Queer Globalization/Local Homosexualities, ed. A. Cruz- Malavé and M. Manalansan (New York University Press, 2002)
• "Sex and Freedom" with Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy in Regulating Sex, ed. E. Bernstein and L. Schaffner (Routledge Press, 2005)
• "Different Differences: Theory and the Practice of Women's Studies," in Women's Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics, ed. Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Agatha Meryl Beins (Rutgers University Press, 2006)
• “Work is Not the Only Problem,” Got Life?: Roundtable Discussion on Work-Life Balance, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 23.2 (Fall 2007).
• “Religion, Politics, and Gender Equality in the U.S.,” with Elizabeth Bernstein, Third World Quarterly,  31.6 (2010).
• “Perverse Justice,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 18.1 (2012): 19-28.
• “Collaborations,” American Quarterly, 64.4 (December 2012): 827-32.
• “Visions of Justice: New Economies and New Solidarities,” Journal of the European Society of Women in Theological Research (2014).
• “Gender, Sex, and Religious Freedom in the Context of Secular Law,” with Christine M. Jacobsen and Myanthi Fernando, Feminist Review, 113 (2016): 93-102.
• “Equality of Religious Freedom,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 86.1 (March2018): 235-40.

Notes and References

1. Web site: About – Janet Jakobsen . 2024-11-21 . en-US.
2. Web site: Janet Jakobsen Barnard College . 2024-11-21 . barnard.edu.
3. News: Rubenstein. Lauren. Crosby Honored at Barnard College Event. 24 June 2017. News @ Wesleyan. March 18, 2015.
4. Weinstein. Michael M.. A Professor's Memoir of Life Inside a Ravaged Body. 24 June 2017. The New Yorker. April 16, 2016.
5. Web site: The Sex Obsession . 2024-11-21 . NYU Press . en-US.
6. Skerrett. K.. Review: Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 1 September 2003. 71. 3. 695–697. 10.1093/jaarel/lfg086. en. 0002-7189.
7. Ayoub. Nina C.. Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 7 February 2003. 0009-5982.
8. Stayton. William R.. Review of Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance. Journal of the History of Sexuality. 2004. 13. 2. 252–254. 3704863. 10.1353/sex.2004.0072. 142682070.
9. Troy. Jodok. Interventions: Activists and Academics Respond to Violence. Journal of Peace Research. 1 January 2007. 44. 1. 123. 10.1177/0022343307072428. 108931281. en. 0022-3433.
10. Brittain. Christopher Craig. Book Reviews /Comptes Rendu Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini, eds., Secularisms. Canadian Journal of Sociology. 2009. 34. 1. 10.29173/cjs5022. free.