Biography

Davis is the author, most recently, of Fierce Desires: A New History of Sex and Sexuality in America (WW Norton, 2024). Her other books include More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss (Harvard University Press, 2010) and Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions that Changed American Politics (University of North Carolina Press, 2021). In addition, with Dr. Michele Mitchell, she is co-editor of Heterosexual Histories (New York University Press, 2021).

Prof. Davis is a recipient of a 2022 Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a 2011-2012 recipient of the LGBT Religious History Award from the LGBT Religious Archives Network, for her essay, “’My Homosexuality Is Getting Worse Every Day‘: Norman Vincent Peale, Psychiatry, and the Liberal Protestant Response to Same-Sex Desires in Mid-Twentieth-Century America.” She is a producer of the Sexing History podcast, a research associate of the Council on Contemporary Families, and a member of the Scholarly Advisory Board of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.​

"This Is Probably a Really Weird Question" is a new podcast co-created by Davis and Ronni Hayon, a family physician. Davis and Hayon met at sleep-away summer camp when they were 16 years old, and they have been having conversations about sex and justice ever since. This podcast shares the insights they gain from one another's respective areas of expertise with a wide public.