Lance Pederson is a Ph.D. student who studies power, masculinity, and homosexuality in France and its colonial empire from 1660-1815. He obtained his B.A. from Hamline University where he majored in History with a double minor in French and Mandarin Chinese. He completed the first year of his Ph.D. program at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign before following his advisor, Dr. Clare Haru Crowston, to the University of British Columbia. He is an affiliate and a graduate student fellow at UBC’s Center for European Studies. His current research project focuses on rumors, poison, and the concept of male homosexuality as an “Italian vice” in the court of Louis XIV. More broadly, he aims to develop new approaches to studying queer experiences in the early modern period. His teaching philosophy is centered on presenting historical topics in straightforward and engaging ways that highlight how studying the past is crucial to understanding the world we currently live in.

• Early Modern France
• Sexuality & Gender Transgression
• Masculinity
• Political History
• Cultural History
• Empire & Colonialism
• Art History

Conferences, Talks, and Presentations:

March 29, 2023. “The Exceptional Position of Monsieur: Philippe d’Orléans in his Brother’s France.” Paper Presentation. Society of Minority Students in History’s Women’s History Month Grad Talks. University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign, United States.

March 3, 2023. “The Exceptional Position of Monsieur: Philippe d’Orléans in his Brother’s France.” Paper Presentation. 2023 Women’s and Gender History Symposium. University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign, United States.

Undergraduate Departmental Honors Thesis: 

Selling Sex in a Culture of Convergence: Prostitution in the French Concession of Shanghai

Dr. Clare Haru Crowston

Teaching Assistantships: 

HIST 380A:  The Making of Modern China: Nationalism, War, and Revolution. Taught by Dr. Timothy Cheek. Spring 2024.

HIST 201:  History Through Photographs. Taught by Dr. Kelly McCormick. Fall 2023.