Books

Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021). Read an overview of the book.

Beyond Hawaiʻi: Native Labor in the Pacific World (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018). Read an overview of the book.

Journal Articles

“How to Become a Woman,” Southern Cultures 26, no. 3 (2020): 122-137. Co-winner of the 2021 Article Award from the Oral History Association.

“Make Roanoke Queer Again: Community History and Urban Change in a Southern City,” The Public Historian 39, no. 1 (2017): 35-60. Honorable Mention for the 2018 G. Wesley Johnson Award (for the most outstanding article in The Public Historian), National Council on Public History. Included in The Public Historian, 40th Anniversary digital collection (2018), representing “the most significant, enduring, and widely read essays… published since 1978.”

“A Storm in Sāmoa: An Environmental Microhistory,” Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice 21, no. 1 (2017): 2-27.

“Workers of the World’s Oceans: A Bottom-Up Environmental History of the Pacific,” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 3, no. 1/2/3 (2016): 290-310.

“Life and Labor in a Seabird Colony: Hawaiian Guano Workers, 1857-1870,” Environmental History 17, no. 4 (2012): 744-782. Reprinted in Environmental History, 40th Anniversary Virtual Edition (2017), representing “path-breaking scholarship that has shaped our field.”

“Boki’s Predicament: The Material Culture and Environmental History of Hawaiian Sandalwood, 1811-1830,” World History Bulletin 27, no. 1 (2011): 46-62.

Book Chapters

“Trans People Have a Long History in Appalachia—but Politicians Prefer to Ignore It,” in The Conversation on Gender Diversity, ed. Jules Gill-Peterson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023.

“Many Diasporas: People, Nature, and Movement in Pacific History,” in Migrant Ecologies: Environmental Histories of the Pacific World, eds. James Beattie, Ryan Tucker Jones, and Edward Dallam Melillo, 30-46. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2023.

Reviews

Review of La Shonda Mims, Drastic Dykes and Accidental Activists: Queer Women in the Urban South. In Journal of History 58, no. 1 (2023): 112-113.

Review of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. In The Public Historian 45, no. 1 (2023): 127-130.

Review of Amanda Regan and Eric Gonzaba, Mapping the Gay Guides: Visualizing Queer Space and American Life. In Scholarly Editing 39 (2022).

Review of Hugh Ryan, When Brooklyn Was Queer. In New York History 102, no. 1 (2021): 221-223.

Review of Katherine Crawford-Lackey and Megan E. Springate, eds., Communities and Place: A Thematic Approach to the Histories of LGBTQ Communities in the United States. In The Public Historian 43, no. 2 (2021): 177-179.

Review of Katherine Crawford-Lackey and Megan E. Springate, eds., Preservation and Place: Historic Preservation by and of LGBTQ Communities in the United States. In History News 74, no. 4 (2019): 39.

Review of Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet and Timothy J. LeCain, The Matter of History: How Things Create the Past. In Journal of World History 30, no. 3 (September 2019): 459-464.

Review of Kealani Cook, Return to Kahiki: Native Hawaiians in Oceania. In World History Connected 16, no. 1 (February 2019).

Review of Frederic Caire Chiles, California’s Channel Islands: A History. In Environmental History 21, no. 1 (January 2016).

Review of Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaikaʻala Wright, eds., A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty. In Native American and Indigenous Studies 2, no. 2 (2015): 178-180.

Review of JoAnna Poblete, Islanders in the Empire: Filipino and Puerto Rican Laborers in Hawaiʻi. In Essays in History 57 (2015).

Review of films As Goes Janesville by Brad Lichstenstein and Brothers on the Line by Sasha Reuther. In The Middle Ground Journal: World History and Global Studies, no. 7 (Fall 2013).

Essays

“Gender-affirming care has a long history, though anti-trans laws pretend it’s ‘untested,'” Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2023. Originally published in The Conversation, March 27, 2023.

“The Best Genre-Bending Books on Queer Pasts and Futures,” Shepherd, September 5, 2022.

“Trans People Have a Long History in Appalachia—But Politicians Prefer to Ignore It,” The Conversation, December 8, 2021.

“Living with the Ghosts of Queer Pasts,” Southern Spaces, October 28, 2021.

“How Should We Respond When a Public Historian Engages in, or has Experienced, Sexual Harassment,” History@Work, January 14, 2021.

Tatiana Durant and G. Samantha Rosenthal, “The LGBTQ Movement Has a White Supremacy Problem” WUSSY, July 10, 2020.

“Lasting Legacy: What Stonewall Means in the South,” WUSSY, June 6, 2019.

“Rethinking Capitalism from New York to Hawaiʻi,” UC Press Blog, June 20, 2018.

“Roanoke Made Me Queer Again,” History@Work, May 9, 2018.

“Who Needs Gay Books?” WUSSY, August 2, 2017.

“Reclaiming Queer Historical Space,” History@Work, February 2, 2017.

G. Samantha Rosenthal and Marjeela Basij-Rasikh, “Many Environmentalisms from New York to Kabul, from the Past to the Present,” Solutions 6, no. 3 (July 2015): 70-74.

“Marx in the Mountains: Poverty and Environment in and outside of the Classroom,” Perspectives on History 53, no. 2 (February 2015): 36-37.

“It’s Been Two Years Since Sandy: The Lesson We Missed,” History News Network, October 19, 2014.

Encyclopedia Entries

“Hawaii,” in The Sea in World History: Exploration, Travel, and Trade, ed. Stephen K. Stein (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2017)

“Bayonet Constitution,” and “Kamehameha,” in Imperialism and Expansionism in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection, eds. Chris J. Magoc and David Bernstein (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2015).

“Hiawatha,” “King Kamehameha,” and “Tonga,” in Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures, and Contemporary Issues, ed. Steven L. Danver (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2012).

“Wilderness Act,” in Encyclopedia of Water Politics and Policy in the United States, eds. Steven L. Danver and John R. Burch (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011).

Pamphlets

Kevin Avery, G. Samantha Rosenthal, and Elizabeth B. Jacks, The Hudson River School Art Trail Guide (Catskill, NY: Thomas Cole National Historic Site, 2009).

White Papers

Olivia Waters and G. Samantha Rosenthal, “Recommendations for the Treatment of Transgender and Non-Binary Students in Health and Counseling at Roanoke College,” April 2023.

co-authored with the students of SENV 3452A: Environmentalism and the Poor, “Forms of Working-Class / Peasant Environmental Resistance,” The Stream: a Blog for the Middlebury School of the Environment, August 25, 2014.

Awards and Honors

2021            Winner (tie), Article Award, Oral History Association

2021            Dr. Kenneth R. Garren Diversity Award, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Roanoke College

2019            Unsung Hero Award, Roanoke City Office of Neighborhood Services (awarded to the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project)

2018            Heritage Education Award, Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation (awarded to the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project)

2018            Honorable Mention, G. Wesley Johnson Award (for the most outstanding article in The Public Historian), National Council on Public History

2018            Honorable Mention, Allan Bérubé Prize (for outstanding work in public or community-based LGBTQ history), Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History (awarded to the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project)

2016            Rachel Carson Prize for Best Dissertation, American Society for Environmental History

2016            Constance Coiner Award for Best Dissertation, Working Class Studies Association

2015            New England Regional Fellowship Consortium Award

2014-15      Dissertation Completion Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies

2014            Alumni Association Dean’s Choice Award, Graduate School, State University of New York at Stony Brook

2013            Bernard Semmel Memorial Award, History Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook

2013            Arthur J. Quinn Memorial Fellowship, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

2013           Michael J. Connell Foundation Fellowship, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

2011           Best Teaching Assistant Award, History Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook

2010           Phi Alpha Theta / World History Association Student Paper Prize (Graduate Division)

2007           Publicly Active Graduate Education Fellowship, Imagining America

2004           William Stringfellow Award for Justice and Peace, Bates College