In Memoriam

Jesse Frank Battan, historian and American Studies scholar, died unexpectedly on 12 April 2024 at the age of 75.

Jesse was born in Burbank Hospital on August 4,1948 to parents Mary and Jesse Battan. He grew up in Woodhill Hills, California, graduating from Taft High School in 1966. Jesse was an ardent surfer and spent much of his free time as a youth in the Pacific Ocean with his friends. He started a small side business making surfboards, “Surfboards by Battan,” and opened a shop on Ventura Boulevard, between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Shoup Avenue. Following high school, he briefly attended the University of Hawaii and then transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a B.A. in History in 1970. He began graduate studies at New York University, where he finished an M.A. in History in 1972 and went on to complete a Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1988.

For over forty years, Jesse was a central figure in the Department of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton. He joined the department in 1980, serving as a professor, leading as department chair, and taking on an interim position as Associate Dean for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Jesse was a passionate and gifted educator who taught a range of introductory and advanced courses on American Studies, including courses on Hollywood and America, traditions of cultural radicalism, and the history of sexuality and emotions. His dynamic lectures inspired generations of CSUF students, and his classes on “Love in America” were legendary, as was his kindness, humor, and dedication to teaching. Jesse also taught in an exchange program at the University of Tübingen in Germany. In addition to his teaching, numerous publications, conference presentations, grants, and fellowships document Jesse’s influence on US social and cultural history, particularly on the study of social revolution and sexuality. Jesse was a reader at the Huntington Library, and for many years a regular presence in their reading rooms. At his death he was finishing a book manuscript, Intimate Revolutions: Radical Encounters with Modern Love and Desire in 20th-Century America.

• AMST 201 – Introduction to American Studies
• AMST 318 – Hollywood and America: Using Film as a Cultural Document
• AMST 419 – Love in America
• AMST 460 – Bohemians and Beats: Cultural Radicalism in America
• AMST 502T - Culture and Desire: Theoretical Approaches to the History of the Emotions

Articles and Book Chapters

• “Contesting the Bonds of Marriage: Free Love in the Nineteenth Century,” in Jen Manion and Nick Syrett, eds., The Cambridge History of Sexuality in the United States, volume 1 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2025), forthcoming.
• “’What Is the Correct Revolutionary Proletarian Attitude toward Sex?’ Red Love and the Americanization of Marx in the Interwar Years,” in Christopher Phelps and Robin Vandome, eds., Marxism and America: New Appraisals  (Manchester, UK: University of Manchester Press, 2021), 43-68.
• “’De-Civilizing’ Sexuality? Intimacy, Erotic Life and Social Change in Modern America,” in Christa Buschendorf, Astrid Franke, Johannes Voelz, eds., Civilizing and Decivilizing Processes: Figurational Approaches to American Culture (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 287-313.
• "'Sexual Selection’ and Social Revolution: Anarchist Eugenics and Radical Darwinism in the United States, 1850-1910," in Jeannette Eileen Jones and Patrick B. Sharp, eds., Darwin in Atlantic Cultures: Evolutionary Visions of Race, Gender, and Sexuality  (New York: Routledge, 2010), 33-52.
• “’You Cannot Fix the Scarlet Letter on My Breast!’: Women Reading, Writing, and Reshaping the Sexual Culture of Victorian America,” Journal of Social History, 37(Spring 2004)3: 601-624.
• ”’Socialism Will Cure All But an Unhappy Marriage’: Free Love and the American Left, 1850-1910,” in Jesse Battan, Thomas Bouchet et Tania Régin, eds., Meetings & Alcôves: Gauches et Sexualités en Europe et aux Etats-Unis depuis 1850/The Left and Sexuality in Europe and the United States since 1850  (Dijon, France: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2004), 29-46.
•  “Des Gauches Adroites?“ in Jesse Battan, Thomas Bouchet et Tania Régin, eds., Meetings & Alcôves: Gauches et Sexualités en Europe et aux Etats-Unis depuis 1850/The Left and Sexuality in Europe and the United States since 1850  (Dijon, France: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2004), 5-28.  Co-authored with Thomas Bouchet.
• “An Introduction to the Socialism and Sexuality Seminar,” in Gert Hekma, ed., Past and Present of Radical Sexual Politics (Amsterdam: Mosse Foundation, 2004), 8-10.
• “’In the Marriage Bed Woman’s Sex Has Been Enslaved and Abused’: Defining and Exposing Martial Rape in Late Nineteenth-Century America,” in Merril D. Smith, ed., Sex Without Consent: Rape and Sexual Coercion in America (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 204-229.
• "The 'Rights' of Husbands and the 'Duties' of Wives: Power and Desire in the American Bedroom, 1850-1910," Journal of Family History, 24(April 1999)2:165-186.
• "Angela Tilton Heywood," in John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, vol. 10 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 724-726.
• "'The Word Made Flesh': Language, Authority, and Sexual Desire in Late Nineteenth-Century America," Journal of the History of Sexuality, 3(October 1992)2:223-244.
  •        Reprinted in John C. Fout and Maura Shaw Tantillo, eds., American Sexual Politics: Sex, Gender, and Race since the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 101-121.
  •        Reprinted in Kathy Peiss, ed., Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 252-263.
• "The 'New Narcissism' in 20th-Century America: The Shadow and Substance of Social Change," Journal of Social History, 17(Winter 1983)2:199-220.

Book

• Meetings & Alcôves: Gauches et Sexualités en Europe et aux Etats-Unis depuis 1850/The Left and Sexuality in Europe and the United States since 1850 (Dijon, France: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2004).  Co-edited with Thomas Bouchet and Tania Régin.

Selected Conference Presentations:

• “’What Is the Correct Revolutionary Proletarian Attitude toward Sex?’ Red Love and the Americanization of Marx in the Interwar Years,” Symposium on “Marx and Marxism in the United States, sponsored by the British Association for American Studies and the Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham, UK (May 11, 2019).
• “From Fourier to Freud: Changing Conceptions of ‘Sexual Revolution’ in the United States, 1820-1930,” Conference on Sexual Revolutions—Sexual Politics, Sponsored by the International Network for Sexual Ethics and Politics and the Center for Ethics and Value Inquiry, University of Ghent, Belgium (February 22-23, 2018).
• “’Freedom Does Not Mean Joy’: Sexual Revolutions and the ‘Flight from Feeling’ in Early 20th-Century America,” Conference on Failing at Feelings: Historical Perspectives (1800-2000), Center for the History of Emotions, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany (December 15-16, 2016).
• “Contesting Innocence in Victorian America: The Free Lovers’ Challenge to Mr. Comstock and Mrs. Grundy,” International Conference on Guarding Innocence: Moral Protectionism in Nineteenth Century Britain and America, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK (September 3-4, 2010). 
• “How ‘Misbehaving Women’ Changed History: The Sexual Politics of Frances Wright, Mary Gove Nichols, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman,” Comment on the Presidential Panel, “Misbehaving Women: Sex Radicals and Nonconformists Who Made U.S. History,” at the 124th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, San Diego, CA (January 7, 2010).
• “’De-Civilizing’ Sexuality? Intimacy, Erotic Life and Social Change in Modern America,” American Studies Association Annual Convention, Albuquerque, NM (October 18, 2008)
• “Writing the Self, Writing a Revolution: Personal Correspondence and the Transformation of Private Life in Late Nineteenth-Century America,” International Conference on Writing the Self in the Americas: Diaries, Letters, Life Stories, sponsored by the American Studies Research Center at the University of Versailles, St- Quentin-en-Yvelines, France (June 22, 2007).
• “Living the Life of ‘Love in Liberty’: Free Unions and Free Love in Late Nineteenth-Century America,” International Socialism and Sexuality Conference on Les socialistes et le mariage - Socialists and marriage, Laboratoire de Démographie historique de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France (October 5, 2006)
• “Parading Private Thoughts in Public Spaces: Making a Spectacle of Desire in Nineteenth-Century America,” American Studies Association Annual Convention, Washington, DC (November 7, 2005)
• “Performing Free Love: Oratory, Print Culture, and the Creation of a ‘Sexual Revolution’ in Nineteenth-Century America,” Material Cultures and the Creation of Knowledge Conference,  Centre for the History of the Book, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, Scotland (July 23, 2005)
• “’Free Motherhood’ and ‘Race Progress’: A Eugenics of the Left in the United States, 1820-1910,” 118th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Washington, DC (January, 2004)
• “The Passionless Woman: Prescriptive Ideology, Social Identity, and Sexual Experience in Victorian America,” Conference on Women's Sexualities: Historical, Interdisciplinary, and International Perspectives, sponsored by The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, IU Gender Studies Department, IU History Department, and the Social Science Research Council, Indiana University (November 2003)
• “Communities of Sentiment, Ties of Affinity: Reading, Desire, and Sexual Reform in Nineteenth-Century America,” Gutenberg 2000: An International Conference on the History of the Book, sponsored by the Gutenberg Institute for the History of the Book (University of Mainz), the Gutenberg Society, and the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, Mainz, Germany (July, 2000).
• "'Why Do So Many Wives Grow Disgusted With Their Husbands?' Exploring the Emotional Lives of Husbands and Wives in Nineteenth-Century America," Third Carleton Conference on the History of the Family, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada (May 15, 1997).
• "'I Was not Always Passionless, Who is to Blame that I am Now? Expanding the Boundaries of Sexual Identity in Victorian America," 87th Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Atlanta, Georgia, April 15, 1994.

Grants and Special Projects

• British Association for American Studies Eccles Centre Visiting U.S. Fellow in North American Studies for 2012 to conduct research at the British Library in London.

"Storyteller. Committed. Transformative. Inspired. Thought-provoking. Challenging. World class intellectual. That’s how I would encapsulate Dr. Battan’s existence.

The title of his course, “Love in America,” first captured my attention as I walked the halls of Langsdorf Hall. I was a lost soul at the time. As a first-generation Latina I came to CSUF as a music performance major only to realize that it wasn’t for me. I minored and I changed majors three times and ended up on academic probation. It was at this time that I walked by the Study Abroad office and apparently, some professor was teaching “Love in America” in London. Obviously, I was in no shape to afford to study abroad nor were my grades up to par.

After meeting with an academic advisor to discuss my academic probation, it was suggested that I should take an American Studies course. It was a blessing in disguise. I took an American Studies 201 course to supplant the grade for a terrible history course I had failed. I earned an “A” and thought, “This major gels with me. Let me see what else it has to offer.” And voila, there was “Love in America” once again. Any time I stepped into Dr. Battan’s classroom, I felt like I belonged and that he expected the absolute best of me and everyone in that classroom. I read and took notes voraciously. As a matter of fact, I blame him for developing carpal tunnel. Those exams were no joke. His natural ability to make history come to life impacted me in more ways than he ever knew. All my life to that point, I had questioned social conventions, especially cultural ones to the point of feeling alone. And that was the beauty of his teaching, that he could lecture about radical historical figures who had these same questions and make you feel connected to them. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone in my desire to forge a different path for myself like womxn before me. I took every single course he taught at the undergraduate and graduate level.

I went from being on academic probation to realizing that academia is where I wanted to live. There’s nothing I wanted more than to live in a world of ideas. Jesse Battan just made it look so cool. Therefore, I started to think of something that seemed impossible for me at one point—How do I become a professor? What is that career path? Dr. Battan said it was grad school. I started to research. Penn State and CSU Fullerton accepted me. Dr. Battan said, “Why go to Penn State? Save yourself the money.” Practical. That’s another word I would use to describe him. Even as I transitioned to the doctoral program at U.T., Austin, I never again found a professor like Dr. Battan. He was truly one-of-a-kind."

-Brenda Beza