The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History

Committee members participated in a nearly a dozen sessions on LGBTQ history at the 2011 Big Berks, held at the University of Massachusetts June 9-12. Those unable to attend can now read reports from a number of those sessions on our Conference Reports page. Sessions covered include “Queering the College Campus,” “Tomboys and the Heritage of Gender Nonconformity in the United States, 1850s-1960,” “Utility/Necessity: The Enduring Relevance of Lesbian Identities,” “Race, Sexuality, Gender and the Body in Early-Twentieth-Century American Culture,” and the “Lesbian Generations” roundtable.

The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History, an affiliate society of the American Historical Association, has established the Allan Bérubé Prize to recognize outstanding work in public or community-based lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer history. While books or essays written for a broad audience are eligible for consideration, we are looking in particular to recognize other types of historical work, including—but not limited to:

• websites, blogs, podcasts, and other online media
• documentary film and video
• archival and oral history projects
• museum and other curated public exhibitions and installations
• walking tours
• radio programming
• organizational/program development efforts whose primary audiences are not academic specialists.

Scholarly publications that politically intervene in the relationship between academic and public/community-based history may also be considered. While academically affiliated scholars may apply based on public or community-oriented projects, individuals with a history of independent or community-based work will be given priority and are especially encouraged to apply.

The 2012 Bérubé Prize, which is underwritten by the GLBT Historical Society (San Francisco, Calif.), will recognize excellence in work completed in the previous two calendar years (2010 and 2011). Projects by individuals, groups, community organizations, or other organizations may be nominated. Individuals or organizational entities responsible for the project should nominate themselves.

Read the rest of this entry →

The 2011 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians begins this Thursday in Houston. Listed below are some sessions that we think may be of interest to members of the Committee on LGBT History. Have a look at the full program on the OAH’s website, and please let us know in the comments about any additional sessions that we might have missed.

Read the rest of this entry →

The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History, an affiliate society of the American Historical Association, will award the Audre Lorde and Gregory Sprague Prizes in 2012:

• The Audre Lorde Prize for an outstanding article on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, and/or queer history published in English.
• The Gregory Sprague Prize for an outstanding paper or chapter on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, and/or queer history completed in English by a graduate student (the Sprague Prize is underwritten by the Gerber/Hart Library, Chicago, Ill.).

Papers and chapters written and articles published in 2010 or 2011 are eligible. Materials may be submitted by students, faculty, authors, readers, or publishers. Self-nominations are encouraged. Published articles by graduate students may be submitted for both the Lorde and Sprague Prizes. Please label whether the submission is for the Sprague Prize, the Lorde Prize, or both.

The 2012 Lorde/Sprague Prize Committee is chaired by Thomas A. Foster (DePaul University). Claire Potter (Wesleyan University) and Julio Capó, Jr. (Florida International University) comprise the remaining members of the committee.

Please send both one electronic copy and one print copy of your submission to:

Thomas A. Foster
Department of History, SAC 420
2320 North Kenmore Ave.
DePaul University
Chicago, IL 60614
tfoster4@depaul.edu

Mailed submissions must be postmarked by 31 December 2011; Electronic submissions must include be sent by 11:59pm, Central U.S. Standard Time.

If you have questions about the prizes, please contact the Committee on LGBT History Chair, Ian Lekus, at lekus@fas.harvard.edu.

Margot Canaday’s The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton University Press) has been awarded the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History’s 2011 John Boswell Prize. The John Boswell Prize is awarded for an outstanding book on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, and/or queer history published in English during the two previous years.

The 2011 Prize Committee was chaired by Ellen Herman and included Chris Waters and Stephanie Gilmore.

In reaching its decision, the Prize Committee prepared the following commendation:

“Canaday’s stunning analysis of the U.S. state during the twentieth century carves out a bold new place for sexuality at the center of political and legal history. Through a compelling series of case studies, The Straight State tells a story about the bureaucratic regulation of sexual and civic identities that are made problematic through their interaction with state actors and processes. Canaday’s insights about how federal power made homosexuality increasingly visible over time are sure to inspire fresh directions in work not only in GLBT history, but on citizenship and state-formation in history and beyond. This is a truly original book. Margot Canaday is an assistant professor of history at Princeton University.”

For further information, contact Committee on LGBT History Chair Ian Lekus. Click here for a list of past John Boswell Prize winners, and click here to learn about the Committee on LGBT History’s other prizes.

Shelley Grosjean, “A ‘Womyn’s’ Work is Never Done: The Gendered Division of Labor on Lesbian Separatist Lands in Southern Oregon” has been awarded the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History’s 2011 Joan Nestle Undergraduate Prize. The Joan Nestle Undergraduate Prize is awarded for an outstanding paper on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, and/or queer history completed in English by an undergraduate student during the previous two years.

The 2011 Prize Committee was chaired by Ellen Herman and included Chris Waters and Stephanie Gilmore.

In reaching its decisions, the Prize Committee prepared the following commendation: Read the rest of this entry →

As part of the Committee’s expanding online presence, we are encouraging participants in panels and conferences on LGBTQ history to prepare and share online short reports for those unable to attend. You’ll be able to find these reports in the Resources menu above, on the Conference Reports page.

Today, I’ve posted the first fruits of these efforts:

• Wesley Chenault and Ian Lekus on the plenary session “Reclaiming Our Stories: A Conversation With Organizers of LGBT Community-Based Oral History Projects” at last October’s Oral History Association meeting,
• Lucinda Grinnell on “Lesbian and Feminist Activisms in the Americas” from the AHA, and
• Leila J. Rupp on “Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on the History of Gay and Lesbian Organizing,” also from the AHA.

Many thanks to these contributors! I encourage you to have a look at their reports and continue the conversation in the comments.

If you’re participating in a panel or conference on LGTBQ history, please consider reporting on it. Contact me or Ian with any questions.

We will have two vacancies on the Governing Board for the Committee on LGBT History, as Julian Carter and Jen Manion finish their three-year terms. If you are interested in serving on the Board, please contact me to discuss this, or to ask any questions that you might have. I will need names and candidate statements by March 10.

Please send publications with a 2010 publication date to Christina Hanhardt for inclusion in the next Newsletter. Publications should be in the field of LGBT/queer/sex/gender/sexuality history and studies, and NOT all member publications in any field. Please include “CLGBTH 2011″ in the subject line of your email.

Please format them as follows:

• Books: Last name, First name. Title. Publication place: Press, date.
• Journal Articles: Last name, First name. “Title.” Name of Journal Vol: No (date): pp.
• Articles in Book: Last name, First name. “Title.” In Name of Book, edited by Name of editor. Publication place: Press, date: pp.

All submissions must be received by March 15 for inclusion in the next issue.

After a wonderfully successful Committee on LGBT History program in Boston this past weekend, it is indeed time to start thinking about panels for next year’s AHA meeting scheduled for Chicago. Proposals are due February 15, and the CFP is here. A couple quick things:

• After our reception with the Coordinating Committee for Women in History and the Peace History Society, the CCWH has approached us to not only co-sponsor a reception again next year, but also to sponsor panels & roundtables as well. If you are already forming a panel with CCWH support, or thinking of a panel that would be appropriate to be sponsored by both organizations, please let me know. Likewise, we can co-sponsor panels with other affiliated societies—we had an excellent panel on Mexican homosexualities co-sponsored by the Conference on Latin American History, and it’d be terrific to work with CLAH again, as well as with other societies.
• The affiliates program deadline will be a few months later—it has been in mid-May the last two years. For those of you working with visual sources, I would however encourage you to submit panels for the main AHA program. This is because the AHA will cover A/V costs for those panels, but not for the affiliates program, and at this point in time, the charges for A/V equipment and labor are prohibitively expensive for us to pick up.