Understanding the LGBTQ History of Tallahassee

What would a queer history of Tallahassee look like? What are the most important developments in the writing of queer and LGBT history, and how can they be applied to interpreting the queer experience in Tallahassee over the past 200 years?

One of the first academic authors of gay and lesbian history earned his PhD at Florida State in the early 1970s and taught some of the first university courses on LGBT history and culture in the nation on the Florida State campus. Why isn’t this story better known, and how can we build on this legacy? How can theory help ensure that we write histories that acknowledge the centrality of race, class, gender, and gender identity, while also always foregrounding issues of political power, labor, coercion, and class?

Theory is not about making what is simple obscure, but instead about helping us to see mechanisms at work, and lives lived, that may have left only faint traces in the archive, rounding out and completing the evidence that has survived in greater abundance.

Join Professor Charles Upchurch, Professor of British & LGBTQ History at Florida State University, for a 40-minute illustrated exploration of all of these themes as they relate to Tallahassee’s queer history.

Reception at 5:00 pm with the lecture beginning at 6:00 pm. Guests are encouraged to RSVP to this free event!