2006-2007 Events
Most events take place in the Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS), 320 York Street.
All events are free and open to the public.
Spring 2007
Monday, February 5, 5 p.m. HGS 211
Regina Kunzel, Williams College
Lessons in Being Gay: Queer Encounters in Lesbian and Gay Prison Activism
In the 1970s and 1980s, gay and lesbian activists advocated on behalf of gay prisoners, while prisoners themselves organized to claim their rights to sexual protection and expression. By exploring the understandings, misunderstandings, and awkward alliances forged between queer prison insiders and outsiders, this talk illuminates the contours of new gay norms in the making.
Regina Kunzel is Farleigh Dickinson Professor of History at Williams College and the author of Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945 (Yale, 1993). She is nearing completion of a book, Outlaw Sex, on the history of prison sexual culture.
Monday, February 26, 6 p.m. Nick Chapel, Trumbull College (Elm at York Street)
E. Patrick Johnson, Northwestern University
Pouring Tea: Narratives of Black Gay Men of the South
Co-sponsored by African American Studies and the World Performance Program
A performance piece based on Professor Johnson’s oral history interviews
with 75 African American gay and transgendered Southerners.
Seating is limited and advance reservations are strongly recommended.
E. Patrick Johnson is Chair of Performance Studies and Associate Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. He is the author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (2003) and co-editor of Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology (2005), and has published numerous articles on race, sexuality, and performance. He has also lectured and performed across the United States. He has presented his best-known performance piece, Strange Fruit, at more than twenty colleges and universities.
Saturday, April 7, 9:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. HGS 211
Inaugural YRIHS Symposium: TRANSNATIONAL HISTORIES OF SEXUALITY
Ann Stoler, The New School for Social Research
Biosecurity and Bodily Exposures: Historical Perspectives on the Sexual Politics of Defense
Afsaneh Najmabadi, Harvard University
Sex in Change: Configurations of Sexuality and Gender in Iran
Héctor Carrillo, San Francisco State University
Sexual Migration, Globalization, and Change: Mexican Gay and Bisexual Men
Dagmar Herzog, CUNY Graduate Center
Syncopated Sex: Toward a Transnational History of Sexuality in Europe
Fall 2006
Monday, October 23, at 5 p.m. LC 317
Susan Stryker will introduce and answer questions about her new film on transgender history,
Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria
Co-sponsored by the Film Studies Program.
On a summer night in 1966, in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, a group of transgender women and gay street hustlers fought back against everyday police harassment. Through interviews and archival footage,Screaming Queens tells the story of this turning point in trans history and provides a vivid portrait of the transwomen, prostitutes, drag entertainers, police officers, ministers, and neighborhood activists behind it.
Susan Stryker is an internationally recognized transgender historian, theorist, and performance artist. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of California at Berkeley, is the co-editor of the newTransgender Studies Reader (Routledge, 2006), and has published numerous articles on transgender history and theory.
Monday, November 6, at 5 p.m. HGS 211
Nayan Shah, University of California, San Diego
South Asian Migration and Intimate Publics
This lecture explores the creation and transformation of the intimate publics that proliferated in the context of transnational migration from Asia to North America in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Drawing on his research in archival legal and administrative records and on popular representation, Nayan Shah explores the social spaces of collision and intimate collaboration among South Asian migrant workers and other transnational migrants in the Pacific rim of North America, 1905-1930.
Nayan Shah teaches history, critical gender studies and ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego. His book, Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown (University of California Press, 2001), was awarded the History Book Award by the Association of Asian American Studies. He has recently published articles in Social Text and American Quarterly from his current research project on South Asian migrants, interracial intimacy, and law in North America, 1900-1950.
Monday, November 13, at 5 p.m. HGS 211
Martin Meeker, University of California, Berkeley
The Lesbian and Gay Politics of Communication: Activism, Journalism, and Publishing, 1940s-1970s
Drawing from his recently published book, Contacts Desired, Meeker will discuss how communications became and remained the main concern of gay male and lesbian activists throughout the homophile era, and beyond. In the course of this discussion, he will develop the concept of a “politics of communication” and explain how it worked—and didn’t—in the 1950s and 1960s.
Martin Meeker is an Associate Academic Specialist with the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, a member of the board of directors of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, and the author of Contacts Desired: Gay and Lesbian Communications and Community, 1940s-1970s (Chicago, 2006). After receiving his doctorate in U.S. history from the University of Southern California, he taught at San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley. He has published numerous reviews and encyclopedia articles and he has essays published in the Journal of the History of Sexuality and the Journal of Women’s History.
Tuesday, November 14, 3:30-5:30, WLH 309
Martin Meeker
Workshop on Oral History Methodology for Graduate Students in History, American Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Graduate students who are interested in conducting oral history interviews and/or incorporating oral history sources in their research and writing are strongly encouraged to attend this workshop. Martin Meeker will provide a broad introduction to oral history theory, methodology, human subjects protections, and historiography and will discuss how oral sources differ from written ones in terms of data collection and analysis.