Her research focuses on the formation of modernity through the relationship between modern medicine, various artistic practices and the body in the second half of the 19th century. Her dissertation on Jean-Martin Charcot and the influence of his clinical research on the development of modern entertainment in Paris was awarded the Dean's Prize of the Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana.

As part of the École des Modernités residency program, Eva Smrekar is continuing her research into the history of male transvestism in music-hall, café-concert and balls in late 19th- and early 20th-century Paris. Her research focuses above all on two particular models of the transvestite body, constructed in the modern spectacle: transformism, a new music-hall performative genre based on imitations and rapid transformations of voice, costume and gesture on stage; and the transvestites of "Magic City", one of the first amusement parks in Paris, which became famous for its Mi-Carême transvestite balls especially in the 1920s and 1930s. The figure of Barbette (Vander Clyde Broadway, 1899-1973), a close friend of Cocteau and Man Ray, whose career is documented in archives held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, is the main theme of this research.