Southampton Stonewall Lecture 2024 | Why We Need Queer Kinship Now More Than Ever: Lessons from German History Event

About this event

This lecture asks us to think about how the queer and trans past has often been drawn upon to make a series of claims about liberal democracy itself, including the place of identity in rights-based discourses of experience, policy and governance. Drawing on lessons from German history, Professor Evans argues that in celebrating decriminalization and the attainment of key social rights, we have forgotten that not everyone benefited equally from these gains, as in fact there were many different forms of solidarity and struggle. Using kinship as an analytic category allows us to uncover that phenomenon, to seek out the fraught as well as productive ways in which Germans have confronted race, gender nonconformity, and sexuality in social movements, art and everyday life. The lecture therefore tells the story of entanglements and alliances, desire over respectability, and good and bad kin, as queer and trans people have tested new possibilities for life, love and family life in the modern era.

Speaker information

Jennifer Evans is Professor of History at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She is an authority on the history of sexuality, photography, social media and memory. Her recent books include The Queer Art of History: Queer Kinship After Fascism (Duke University Press); an edited volume with Shelley Rose (Berghahn Books) celebrating the life and writing of Jean Quataert; and a co-written monograph Holocaust Memory and the Digital Mediascape (Bloomsbury). She is currently overseeing a multi-year, multi-platform data project on the weaponization of history and hate in social media networks, and is also in the early stages of a new book entitled Photography and the Sexual Revolution: a Transnational Affair. She is co-curator of the New Fascism Syllabus and the German Studies Collaboratory.

Stonewall lecture

Since 2012 the annual Southampton Stonewall Lecture has explored the rich heritage that is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) history. The lecture has been given by a range of prestigious international speakers including Professors George Chauncey, Laura Doan, Dagmar Herzog, Matt Cook, and Howard Chiang. Each lecture has offered an academic approach but one also geared to a broader public audience. A key purpose is to educate contemporary audiences, academic and public, about the past while also promoting the University of Southampton’s commitment to the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion. Through a greater understanding of discrimination and tolerance through the centuries, we can help to promote tolerance and inclusivity in contemporary British society.

Event information

Guests can join this event in person at Avenue Campus, University of Southampton, or online. Please select your ticket choice when booking.

We encourage guests who wish to join in person to register at your earliest opportunity as spaces are strictly limited.

If you have any questions about this event please contact fahevent@soton.ac.uk.