Rahil Asgari

Rahil is a PhD candidate in the Department of History, majoring in U.S. history with minors in Public History, Global History, as well as the History of Medicine and Labor History. Rahil is currently working on her dissertation: “Marketing Sexuality: The Sex Industry and the Politics of Race in Twentieth-Century America.” Her research shows how the forces of marketing in the sex industry have shaped gendered and racialized identities, which have in turn been reproduced in a broader context through the porn industry, and manipulated and shaped public memory in the U.S. She explores the stereotypes that the porn industry in the second half of the 20th century disseminated, how the racial tropes formed in the previous half-century influenced these stereotypes, and what new stereotypes porn magazines generated and propagated in this era. 

Rahil won the Margaret Henson Prize for Best Paper on Women’s History for her paper: “Double Exploitation and Uncompensated Sex Workers in the Capitalist System: Hooters and Supplemental Sex Work” in April 2024, and the Ernesto Valdez Oral History Prize for her article “The Notebook, the Closet, and the Film: Iranians Processing Trauma Through Public History, Case Study: The 1988 Executions” in April 2025. Her article was later published in the International Public History Journal. In April 2026, Rahil received the John King Prize for Outstanding Graduate Student from the Department of History. 

Email: rasgari@cougarnet.uh.edu