Levin Honored During LGBT History Month

This essay summarizes the methods and results of a collaborative student-faculty research project on the history of sexual politics at San Francisco State University. The collaborators collected and analyzed 160 mainstream, alternative, student, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans) media stories. After describing the project parameters and process, the essay discusses six themes: (1) LGBT history; (2) the Third World Liberation Front strike; (3) feminist sexual politics; (4) the history of heterosexuality; (5) sex businesses, commerce, and entrepreneurship; and (6) sexual arts and culture. The conclusion discusses project ethics and collaborative authorship. The essay’s most significant contributions are pedagogical, providing a model for history teachers interested in working with their students on research skills, digital methodologies, and collaborative projects. The essay also makes original contributions to historical scholarship, most notably in relation to the Third World Liberation Front strike. More generally, the essay provides examples of the growing visibility of LGBT activism, the intersectional character of race, gender, and sexual politics, the complicated nature of gender and sexual politics in the “movement of movements,” the commercialization of sex, and the construction of normative and transgressive heterosexualities in this period.

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LGBT History: It's Time to Come Out

Pennsylvania Legacies ◽

10.5215/pennlega.16.1.0032 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 32

Author(s):

Amy Cohen

Keyword(s):

Lgbt History ◽

To Come

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“We Can Make Something Out of Anything”: Sally Potter's Thriller and London's History of Queer Feminist Film Spaces

Film Quarterly ◽

10.1525/fq.2017.70.4.39 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 70 (4) ◽

pp. 39-46

Author(s):

Sophie Mayer ◽

Selina Robertson

Keyword(s):

Sexual Offences ◽

Thick Description ◽

Labor Politics ◽

Lgbt History ◽

Cultural Spaces ◽

Heritage Buildings ◽

Police Records ◽

History Of ◽

Feminist Film ◽

The Uk

The National Trust, a British charity founded in 1895 that manages heritage buildings and open spaces for the UK, is now running daytime tours of London's queer club culture from 1918 to 1967 (when the Sexual Offences Act decriminalized private homosexual acts between men over the age of 21), ending at a version of the Caravan, a queer-friendly members' club from 1934 recreated from police records and court reports. Further, the queer activists Sexual Avengers marked 2017's LGBT History month by placing unofficial “Queer Heritage” blue plaques on London landmarks, including one that commemorated the 1988 action against Section 28 in which four lesbians rappelled into the second chamber of the UK Parliament, the House of Lords. The fiftieth anniversary of the passing of the Sexual Offences Act is being marked this summer by programming at the British Film Institute and other UK cultural institutions. With the National Trust also showcasing the portrait of the Lord Orlando, it is a time when queer histories are clearly entering the mainstream curatorial and cultural spaces and interpretations, making 2017 a productive time to offer a thick description of the complexities of labor, politics, and creative practice that may be smoothed over by this move. At the same time, current queer and feminist spaces in London (as elsewhere in the overdeveloped world) are encountering a recapitulation and intensification of the 1970s version of austerity and precarity that formed both the pretext and subtext of Potter's first film, Thriller (1979), making it an ideal text through which to examine these issues.

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Learning History through Digital Preservation: Student Experiences in a LGBT Archive

Preservation Digital Technology & Culture ◽

10.1515/pdtc-2013-0018 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 42 (3) ◽

pp. 129-136

Author(s):

Anthony Cocciolo

Keyword(s):

Digital Preservation ◽

Student Experiences ◽

Oral Histories ◽

Perceived Learning ◽

Lgbt History ◽

Learning History ◽

History Learning

AbstractArchivists have become increasingly interested in their role as educators. This project builds upon this interest by asking what students can gain in history learning when they are put in the role of archivist. To study this, 43 MSLIS students engaged in digital preservation of oral histories from the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, NY, and were surveyed at the completion of the project to uncover their perceived learning of LGBT history. Results indicate that students perceived increases in their understanding of and interest in LGBT history and issues. This study has implications for further partnerships between archivists and educators.

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