Hannah Frydman

🚨 New article! I'm excited to share “The sodomy consultant of Paris, 1688–1737,” published this week in French Historical Studies: read.dukeupress.edu/french-histo... . A 🧵:

Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising, and the Moral Threat to Press… Join us for a discussion of Hannah Frydman's recently published book Between the Sheets (Cornell University Press, 2025) with CES Resident Faculty Mary D.…

If you’re near @harvard.edu this afternoon, join us for a discussion of @hannahfrydman.bsky.social’s fabulous new book, in conversation with yours truly. ces.fas.harvard.edu/events/2025/...

Flyer for NCFS Unbound

Please join us on Friday to hear @hannahfrydman.bsky.social speak with Raisa Rexer about her brilliant new book, Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising, and the Moral Threat to Press Freedom in France!!! 🔥🔥🔥

A poster for the talk, “The AI heist: how the tech industry exploits the history of art and what we can do to stop it.” Details of the time and location are in the link in the post. The abstract is as follows: Over the last several years, universities and museums have partnered with commercial technology firms like Google, Microsoft, and Meta, who have promised that their AI products will enhance both historical research and accessibility to historical collections. These promises are not supported by the reality of what computer vision-the branch of AI most relevant to the history of art-can achieve. So why have major institutions in education and the arts been so quick to take up these firms' offers? This talk responds to this question by providing an introduction to computer vision's origins in military surveillance, an overview of its development under late capitalist regimes of exploitative micro-labor, and an orientation to how computer vision works. However, the main focus of this talk is not what computer vision does. Rather, I consider the culture of the AI industry, its main objectives, and the dangerous vision for the future that it promises-and whether those promises are credible or even in good faith. This vision for the future has relied on an exploitation of history, and art history in particular, and I argue that it is our responsibility as art historians to be knowledgeable about the forms this exploitation takes. I conclude with suggestions about what we can do to protect the subjects and practitioners of our discipline, as well as education in the humanities more broadly, against this incursion. I do not intend an intransigent rejection of a given technology; rather this talk articulates a challenge that is grounded in knowledge of the historical origins and corporate practices of the AI industry today.

If you’re in the Boston area this Wednesday I’d love for you to come on out! This talk is free and open to the public. as.tufts.edu/art-architec...

Thanks for sharing!

The full LGBTQIA+ Book History Bibliography is here 🏳️‍🌈!!! 650+ items of LGBTQIA+ #BookHistory!!
Check out the intro to see how we made it, the primary bibliography, the article appendix, and the absolutely magnificent zine!!! From monographs to zines, you'll find it here!
sharpweb.org/sharpnews/20...

Yes please!

How have I not seen this? It sounds amazing!

AGAINST AI

teachers!

excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.

take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com

"They certainly didn’t a century ago, when fears about falling birth rates and national decline fueled the expulsion of sexual non-normativity from the pages of a press that sex workers had helped to build— much as sex workers built the internet."

Media, Sex, and Freedom: A Fraught History Hannah Frydman, author of Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising and the Moral Threat to Press Freedom in France, discusses the history of sexual advertising.

"As sex worker, queer, and, more recently, abortion activists continue to remind us, the rights infringements oppressed communities are experiencing [on the internet] will not stop on the margins."

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/media-sex-fr...

Media, Sex, and Freedom: A Fraught History Hannah Frydman, author of Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising and the Moral Threat to Press Freedom in France, discusses the history of sexual advertising.

Hannah Frydman, author of BETWEEN THE SHEETS, discusses the history of sexual #advertising and the modern ways we see #media and #FreeSpeech grapple with sexual content.

@hannahfrydman.bsky.social

Now on the #SageHouseBlog: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/media-sex-fr...

Hannah Frydman's "Between the Sheets" Hannah Frydman is Assistant Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures (French) at Harvard University. She applied the “ Page 99 Test ” ...

If you read "Between the Sheets," I wouldn't recommend starting with page 99, but, if you do, this blog post might help!
page99test.blogspot.com/2025/08/hann... @cornellupress.bsky.social @bethanywasik.bsky.social

Media and the History of Sexual Advertising in Between the Sheets Hannah Frydman, author of Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising and the Moral Threat to Press Freedom in France, discusses the history of sexual advertising.

"'Between the Sheets' reveals a space, hidden in plain sight in Third Republican Paris, where deviant sexualities and lives could be experimented with and financed... That space was the newspaper..." - @hannahfrydman.bsky.social

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/media-histor...

Be sure to read this new review of FIVE recent books on Algerian History (@tgpeterson.bsky.social, @elisefranklin.bsky.social, Sara Rahnama, Elizabeth Perego, and Susan Slyomovics) by @anaisfaurt.bsky.social in Contemporary European History!

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Copy of the book Between the Sheets sitting on a cafe table in Paris

It's pub day for Between the Sheets! So excited for this book to be officially out in the world. Looking forward to getting the chance to talk about it over the coming months! www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Between the Sheets by Hannah Frydman | Hardcover | Cornell University Press Between the Sheets reveals a space, hidden in plain sight in Third Republican Paris, where deviant sexualities and lives could be experimented with and financed, despite republican attempts at growing...

BETWEEN THE SHEETS by @hannahfrydman.bsky.social reveals a space where deviant sexualities + lives could be experimented with and financed, despite attempts at norming the population through the heterosexual family.

#NewBooks #CornellUniversityPress

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

My book, among many others, is currently at 50% off on @cornellupress.bsky.social website with the code 095000. Don’t miss out!

Looks like my book is in this @cornellupress.bsky.social sale! Want to know how a wildly unpopular king trumped up an attack on a Muslim country to justify suspending the rule of law at home? But then ended up getting overthrown himself? This is the book for you 🗃️

In Defense of the Search Bar Mass digitized archival databases are anarchic, rhizomatic places. The search bar makes them this way. This is not to say that large-scale digital librarie

@hannahfrydman.bsky.social looks at the “infinite archive” and its search capability in “In Defense of the Search Bar,” and demonstrates how the “anarchy of the mass digitization and its search bar” can push researchers to “think outside of long-established classifications.” #AHR 🗃️

Really excited that my "In Defense of the Search Bar," which argues that keyword search allows us to queer the archive and how we see the past, is out now in the #AHR! doi.org/10.1093/ahr/...

France’s final nuclear tests in the South Pacific, 30 years on Three decades after France’s last nuclear tests, those living near the test sites still await compensation for the harms caused.

I wrote for @ca.theconversation.com re: the 30th anniversary (this Fri) of President Jacques Chirac's June 13th, 1995 announcement that France would be resuming nuclear testing in the Pacific.

210 detonations in Algeria & Mā'ohi Nui (French Polynesia) from 1960-1996. Thousands of victims.

Check out the special section of NCFS that Cary Hollingshead-Strick and I co-edited—“Fueling the Nineteenth Century"! It was so great working with all these wonderful authors!🔥🚂⛴️🌲

www.ncfs-journal.org/current-toc

A stack of copies of Between the Sheets, a hot pink book by Hannah Frydman

Good mail day! (Too camera shy for an unboxing video, so just imagine me opening this much-needed infusion of pink joy with delight)

Team #BlueSkyStorians & @sfhs.bsky.social, I have awesome news... @hannahfrydman.bsky.social's cleverly titled "Between the Sheets" is shipping! Intrigued? Find your copy at @cornellupress.bsky.social's page, add to your cart, and anxiously await arrival: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

We are pleased to announce that the Gilbert Chinard Book Prize has been awarded to Elisa Camiscioli for Selling French Sex: Prostitution, Trafficking and Global Migrations . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Congratulations! www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

Happening this Tuesday! Do join us and sign up via the link below.

Thanks for making the entrance possible, Bethany! So exciting to hold a copy 😄

Thanks so much, Alexia! That means a lot.

Thanks, Marni! 😊