Samuel Clowes Huneke

Associate Professor

Modern Europe, Modern Germany, History of Sexuality, Legal History, History of Democracy

Samuel Clowes Huneke is an award-winning historian of modern Europe, with a focus on the social and political history of twentieth-century Germany. He is broadly interested in how everyday life intersects with and shapes the relationships between citizens and states. His research focuses on the history of gender and sexuality, legal history, and the history of dictatorship and democracy.

He is the author or editor of several books, including States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany (2022), A Queer Theory of the State (2023), Reimagining Citizenship in Postwar Europe (edited with Rachel Chin, 2025), and, most recently, I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany (2026).

He has begun work on a new book, tentatively titled Queer: A History of the World.

Dr. Huneke gives interviews about his research, German history, and LGBTQ issues, and has advised museums and historical films. He writes regularly for public venues including Boston Review, The Point, and Los Angeles Review of Books.

Education

PhD in History, Stanford University, 2019

MSc with Distinction in Applicable Mathematics, The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2012

AB summa cum laude in German and Mathematics, Amherst College, 2011