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Patrizia Gentile

Patrizia Gentile

Professor

Patrizia Gentile (she/her) is a Professor in the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation (FIST) and the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) teaching in the Sexuality Studies (FIST) and Human Rights & Social Justice programs (IIS). Professor Gentile’s research is co-author of The Canadian War on Queer: National Security as Sexual Regulation (2010) with Dr. Gary Kinsman and the author of the Queen of the Maple Leaf: Beauty Contests and Settler Femininity (2020) which was nominated for the Canadian Historical Association Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize 2021. She is co-editor of two anthologies, We Still Demand!: Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles (2016) and ) Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History (2014) that feature chapters on sexuality, gender, nation, and bodies. Her current projects include a history of boxing, race, and sexuality in Canada, a digital archive hosting posters and pamphlets of the Ottawa-based Beaver Boxing Club, and a history of the leather and kink communities in Canada (1930s to 2010).

Research Interests:

History of Sexuality; Queer History; Critical Sexuality Studies; Queer Theory; Critical Security and Surveillance Studies; history of the body and nation (beauty contests); history of sport (focus on boxing); digital archives; history of leather and kink communities

Current Projects:

  1. Beaver Boxing Club (Ottawa based club founded in 1943) Digital archive of posters and pamphlets (SSHRC-funded project-in progress)
  2. A history of leather and kink communities in Canada from 1930s to 2010 including a history of motorcycle organizations (manuscript)

Titles and Affiliations:

  1. Co-coordinator (with Steven Maynard), Canadian Committee of the History of Sexuality (Canadian Historical Association professional committee)
  2. Chair, Canadian Committee of Women’s and Gender History (Canadian Historical Association professional committee)

Publications:

  1. Patrizia Gentile. (forthcoming). “Rethinking inclusion and erasure of the leather and drag communities in the Canadian gay and lesbian movement during the 1970s,” in Bloombury Handbook of the History of World Sexualities, eds. Nina Kushner and Nicole von Germeten (London: Bloomsbury Press).
  2. Patrizia Gentile. (forthcoming). “Ma vafanculo!: Killjoys, Epistemologies, and Writing Cultural History,” in Feminist Provocateur: Franca Iacovetta ed. by C. Carstairs et al. (University of Toronto Press)
  3. Patrizia Gentle. (2022). “Tears and Tiaras: Affect, Beauty Pageants, and Protest,” in Feeling Feminism: Activism, Affect, and Canada’s Second Wave, eds. Lara Campbell, Michael Dawson, and Catherine Gidney, 120-138. (Vancouver: UBC Press).
  4. Patrizia Gentile. (2020).  Queen of the Maple Leaf: Beauty Contests and Settler Femininity (UBC Press).
  5. Patrizia Gentile, Gary Kinsman, and L.Pauline Rankin, eds. (2016) We Still Demand!: Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles.(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press).
  6. Patrizia Gentile and Gary Kinsman. (2015). “National Security, Homonationalism, and the Making of the Neo-Liberal Queer,” in Queer Kaleidoscopes: Disturbing Canadian Homonationalisms, eds. OmiSoore H. Dryden & Suzanne Lenon, (Vancouver: UBC Press)
  7. Patrizia Gentile and Jane Nicholas, eds. (2014) Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press)
  8. Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile. (2010) The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation. (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press).

Books authored:

Book cover with black text at the top and a tiara in the center, with two cut-out images of a women's faces.

Patrizia Gentile, Queen of the Maple Leaf: Beauty Contests and Settler Femininity (UBC Press,October 2020). Queen of the Maple of Leaf was nominated for the Canadian Historical Association Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize 2021.

Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile. The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation. (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010).

Books edited:

Patrizia Gentile, Gary Kinsman, and L.Pauline Rankin, eds. We Still Demand!: Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles.(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2016)

Patrizia Gentile and Jane Nicholas, eds. Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014)

Journal Articles:

Patrizia Gentile, “Gli Italiani non hanno paura”: Italian-language Newspapers and the 1970 October Crisis,” Quebec Studies 55 (Summer 2013): 135-150.

Patrizia Gentile, “Restricted Access? National Security, Access to Information, and Queer (ing) Archives,” Archivaria 68 (December 2009): 137-158.

Patrizia Gentile and Gary Kinsman, “Sûreté, risque et résistance: Le Programme canadien de surveillance des homosexuels durant la Guerre froide,” Bulletin d’histoire politique 16, no. 3 (2008): 43-58.

Chapters in Collections:

Patrizia Gentile and Gary Kinsman, “National Security, Homonationalism, and the Making of the Neo-Liberal Queer,” in Queer Kaleidoscopes: Disturbing Canadian Homonationalisms, eds. OmiSoore H. Dryden & Suzanne Lenon, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015)

Patrizia Gentile, “‘À Bas la répression contre les homosexuels!’ Résistance et surveillance des gais à Montréal, 1971-1976,” in Histoires de la sexualité au Québec, edited by Jean-Philippe Warren (VLB éditeur, 2013).

Jane Nicholas and Patrizia Gentile, “Introduction: Contesting Bodies, Nation, and Canadian History,” in Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History, edited by Patrizia Gentile and Jane Nicholas (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014)

Patrizia Gentile, “Capital Queer: Social Memory and Queer Place(s) in Cold War Ottawa,” in Placing Memory, edited by James Opp and John Walsh (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010).

Patrizia Gentile, “‘Government Girls,’ ‘Ottawa Men’: Cold War Management of Gender Relations in the Civil Service”, in Dieter Buse, Gary Kinsman, and Mercedes Steedman (eds), Whose National Security? Canadian State Surveillance and The Creation of Enemies, eds. (Toronto: Between the Lines: 2000): 131-141.

Selected Press Appearances:

  1. “Why is Ottawa’s Pride month held in August, and not June?” CBC- All in a Day with Alan Neal, August 15, 2025.
  2. “Sex workers are left out in the cold by Ottawa’s unjust conviction amendments,” The Conversation, March 20, 2023.

Courses Taught:

SXST 2101 Introduction to Critical Sexuality Studies; SXST/HRSJ 2102 Sexuality, Gender and Security; SXST/HIST 3106 Queer(ing) Archives; SXST 4102/WGST 5102 Queer Theory

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