About Dr Stephen Robertson
Dr Stephen Robertson’s research interests include: The twentieth-century United States; The history of sexuality; Law and society; New York City and Hypertext and digital history.
Prior to joining the Department of Histsory, Dr Stephen Robertson was a post-doctoral fellow at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago (1997-98), and the JNG Finley Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at George Mason University (1998-99). He also taught for a semester at Massey University in New Zealand. In 2006, Dr Robertson was awarded a Carrick Australian Award for University Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.
Current projects
- Black Metropolis: Harlem 1915-1930 (with Shane White, Stephen Garton and Graham White)
- Private Eyes and Ears: Covert Surveillance in American life, 1865-1941
- Make Love Not Law: Sex Crime and Sexual Revolution in the United States, 1945-1985
Topics in twentieth-century American history, the history of sexuality, law and society and the history of childhood.
Selected publications
Books
Crimes Against Children: Sexual Violence and Legal Culture in New York City, 1880-1960, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005
Articles
""Boys, of course, cannot be raped": Age, Homosexuality and the Redefinition of Sexual Violence in New York City, 1880-1955," Gender and History 18, 2 (August 2006): 389-416.
“What’s Wrong with Online Readings? Text, Hypertext, and the History Web,” The History Teacher 39, 4 (August 2006): 441-54.
"Seduction, Sexual Violence and Marriage in New York City, 1886-1955," Law and History Review 24, 2 (Summer 2006): 331-74.
"Teaching Students to Read Online Sources," Australasian Journal of American Studies 24, 1 (July 2005): 112-124.
"What's Law Got to Do with it? Legal Records and Sexual Histories," Journal of the History of Sexuality 14, 1/2 (January/April 2005): 161-185.
"Doing History in Hypertext," Journal of the Association for History and Computing 7, 2(August 2004)
"Making Right a Girl's Ruin: Working-Class Legal Culture and Forced Marriage in New York City, 1890-1950," Journal of American Studies (August 2002).
"Age of Consent Law and the Making of Modern Childhood in New York City, 1886-1921," Journal of Social History 35, 4 (Summer 2002): 781-798.
"Separating the Men from the Boys: Masculinity, Psycho-Sexual Development and Sex Crime in the United States, 1930s-1960s," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 56, 1 (January 2001): 3-35.
"Signs, Marks and Private Parts: Doctors, Legal Discourse and Evidence of Rape in the United States, 1823-1930," Journal of the History of Sexuality 8, 3 (January 1998): 345-388.