Call of Papers: What is & How to Do LGBT History 2017

Part of the National Festival of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Trans History

Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th March 2017 @ Blue Coat School, Liverpool, England

Dear Colleague,

We are delighted to announce that the 4th What is & How to Do LGBT History Conference will be held on the weekend of Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th March 2017 in the Port City of Liverpool, England. This is to forestall any clash with our sister events OUTing the Past: the National Festival of LGBT History 2017 that will be celebrated this year in over fifteen festival hubs throughout the country. This will allow scholars to both participate at both wonderful events without concerns of being double booked as has sometimes been the case in previous years.

Please find attached with our compliments a copy of the Call of Papers for the 4th What is & How to Do LGBT History Conference that we trust will prompt you to consider submitting and abstract for the event. The Conference has in past years been most successful in attracting a wide range of delegates including professional scholars, post/undergraduates and informed members of public drawn from wide range of professions and academic disciplines. Previous conferences have attracted professional scholars at the cutting edge of research including: Alison Oram (Leeds Beckett), Charles Upchurch (Florida State University), Matt Cook (Birkbeck College, University of London) Susan Stryker (University of Arizona) and Stephen Whittle (Manchester Metropolitan University). The international dimension of the event suggested by the mention of scholars from the USA has been further enhanced by delegates and presenters from; France, Germany, Finland, Japan, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Poland.

Together with showcasing new research into past attitudes towards sex and gender, the conference also seeks to facilitate discussions about methodology by hosting a number of sessions, led by expert practitioners.

The feedback from delegates at past conferences has been consistently excellent. This year we have again attempted to keep the registration fee at an affordable level of just less than one hundred pounds that includes refreshments and a conference banquet. However, a Conference Bursary will again be established to help those on limited means to obtain support to attend. The on-line registration will open in September and if you wish to be kept directly informed of conference news please sent a request to us and we will be delighted to add you to the advanced conference mailing list.

OUTing the Past: the National Festival of LGBT History has demonstrated the public interest and demand for the history of past attitudes to sex and gender. A major aim of the 4th What is & How to Do LGBT History Conference will be again to highlight the subject and again showcase some of the remarkable and fascinating research being undertaken to a wider audience. We hope you will consider answering this Call of Papers and share your work at this remarkable celebration of history.

Emma Vickers / Jeff Evans
Liverpool John Moores University / Manchester Metropolitan University

On behalf of the LGBT HM Academic Advisory Panel the conference organisers

Our Academic Advisory Panel (History): Emma Vickers (Liverpool John Moores University), Helen Smith (University of Lincoln) Jana Funke (University of Exeter), Jeff Evans (Manchester Metropolitan University), Jen Grove (University of Exeter), Mark Walmsley (University of Leeds).

Our Distinguished Academic Patrons: Alison Oram (Professor in Social and Cultural History, Leeds Becket University), Harry Cocks (Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, University of Nottingham) , Matt Cook (Professor Matt Cook, History & Gender Studies at Birkbeck, University of London), Sheila Rowbotham (Professor, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester),Charles Upchurch (Associate Professor of History, Florida State University), Jeffrey Weeks (Research Professor, Arts & Human Sciences/Social Sciences, London South Bank University), Stephen Whittle (Professor of Equalities Law in the School of Law, Manchester Metropolitan University).

The Sexual Offences Act: 50 years on

2017 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of the Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised private homosexual acts in England and Wales for men over the age of 21. This year's What is and how to do LGBT Historyconference will consider the role that legal reform has played in the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, intersex and queer people.

Celebrating the anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act offers us an important opportunity to reflect on the relationship between the law and (homo)sexuality, specifically:

  • Did 1967 represent an effort to better align the law to individual behaviour or should it be understood as an attempt to control same-sex expression in public spaces?
  • Did the liberal reform of sexuality follow the pattern of other liberal law reforms, creating new disciplinary mechanisms as the price exacted for greater freedoms? What might be some of the less explored consequences of this reconfiguration of rights and responsibilities?
  • Has queer history failed to properly interrogate the relationship between female same-sex desire and the law?
  • What has the control of sexuality had to do with the legal status of trans people?
  • What has been the heritage of de/criminalisation in (post)colonial contexts?
  • How has the law continued to frame LGBTIQ identities?
  • To what extent has homosexual law reform represented a progression in attitudes in wider society?

We welcome abstracts for papers or panels that interrogate the relationship between history, heritage, the law and LGBTIQ people. We also welcome papers that historicise the LGBTIQ past and consider how we might best incorporate LGBTIQ histories into the curricula of schools and universities. Preference will be given to those abstracts which directly address the conference theme.

P.T.O.

Presenters are asked to present in English. We will endeavour to source translators for the Q and A sessions for those who are not fluent in English.

Call of Papers Timetable

Abstracts should be submitted by 15 September 2016, via . Individual abstracts should be between 150 and 250 words, and should include a short biography. You will be contacted about the decision by 21stSeptember 2016 and later in the month the preliminary conference programme and registration will be available on our website.

The conference is affiliated to Schools OUT/LGBT History Month and is convened by:

The LGBT HM Academic Advisory Panel (History): Emma Vickers (Liverpool John Moores University), Helen Smith (University of Lincoln) Jana Funke (University of Exeter), Jeff Evans (Manchester Metropolitan University), Jen Grove (University of Exeter), & Mark Walmsley (University of Leeds).

The LGBT HM Distinguished Academic Patrons are: Alison Oram (Professor in Social and Cultural History, Leeds Becket University), Harry Cocks (Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, University of Nottingham) , Matt Cook (Professor Matt Cook, History & Gender Studies at Birkbeck, University of London), Sheila Rowbotham (Professor, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester),Charles Upchurch (Associate Professor of History, Florida State University), Jeffrey Weeks (Research Professor, Arts & Human Sciences/Social Sciences, London South Bank University), Stephen Whittle (Professor of Equalities Law in the School of Law, Manchester Metropolitan University).

Registered in England as a charitable incorporated organisation number 1156352.

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