Nastasha Sartore

I am a social and cultural historian of modern Britain and Europe, with particular interests in histories of labour, gender and sexuality, and empire, as well as public history and the digital humanities.

Drawing from methods in social history, feminist and queer studies, visual culture, and the history of emotions, my historical research has centered on the everyday lives and loves of women on the margins of British society. My PhD dissertation, titled "Precarious Desire: Gender, Intimacy, and Companionship in Working-Class London, 1880-1914," examined how underemployed home-workers, striking factory workers, sex workers, and local suffrage activists formed intimate attachments as they navigated poverty and chronic insecurity. It also included an open-access digital mapping project about sex work in London’s West End.

My new research project shifts focus to the history of mental illness in the modern era. It examines intimate experiences of suicide and their entanglements with gender, class, and disability in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

I am also interested in collaborative efforts to build innovative, accessible pedagogies for undergraduates. I have designed and taught courses in women’s history and the history of gender and sexuality across 19th century Europe and its empires.