On this page you will find details of our previous events from 2020. During this time we operated under the title of Queer History Warwick and later in the year developed into queer/disrupt.
Reading Images: Queer Re/presentation and Identity
14th January 2020
In collaboration with the Student Union and the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL).
Speaker: Hannah Ayres
'Reading Images' was an interactive session in which participants were asked to look at photographs of 'queer' objects/spaces/texts from museums and reflect on whether they could personally connect to any of these re/presentations. These images were then used as jumping off points to reflect on queer re/presentation in museums and how history can gain new relevance for people's everyday lives.
Power Flip: Examining the Personal Archive of a Bisexual Homosexual Aversion Therapist
29th Janurary 2020
In collaboration with the Centre for the History of Medicine.
Speaker: Kate Davison
Davison discusses the previously unseen personal papers of the Australian psychiatrist Dr. Neil McConaghy (1927-2005). Between 1964-1981 McConaghy was an internationally renowned practitioner of homosexual aversion therapy, conducting 5 large-scale clinical experiments and treating more than 200 men. This talk outlines some of the ways in which the McConaghy Papers can change the way we consider the archives of power and prompt us to rewrite histories of psychiatrists’ interactions with pathologised sexualities and to reconsider what constitutes a ‘queer archive’.
Nanette Screening & Discussion
5th February 2020
Discussants: Dr Sharon Lockyer, Joseph Harrison (Warwick) & Amy Zala (Leicester)
Dr Sharon Lockyer, Joseph Harrison & Amy Zala discussed the original standup special by comedian Hannah Gadsby: Nanette. Gadsby comments her life and growing up gay on the small island of Tasmania. Recently hailed by the New York Times as a “major new voice in comedy,” Hannah keeps her audience at the Sydney Opera House laughing with her sharp observations as she takes aim at everything from pride parades, unsolicited opinions and the whole history of art before she turns her punchlines into sucker punches, silencing the laughs and flipping the art of comedy completely on its head.
Uses of the Feminist Imagination
Tuesday 18th February
In collaboration with the Department of History Warwick
Speaker: Lola Olufemi
In this talk and interactive workshop, Lola defined the broad contours of the feminist imagination, how it presents itself, and what it looks like in the bounds of an institution.
Who does imagining matter for? She focused specifically on experiences of (queer) students of colour and their disappointments regarding knowledge production + reproduction of powers in institutional spaces. How does the imagination manifest, what does it engender?
Dragged Through History
7th April 2020
In collaboration with Warwick SU and Coventry Pride.
Speaker: Ibi Profane
Drag queen Ibi Profane (whose day job is a PG student at Warwick) mapped a brief and potted history of drag through the ages on the livestream of Warwick's SU Corona Community page and Coventry Pride.
From Greek Theatre to RuPaul via the black death and Shakespeare, with lots more in between, it's a light-hearted whizz through time with some key moments in drag history, followed by a Q&A.
Trancestry
9th June 2020
In collaboration with Warwick SU, Campus Pride 2020, and Coventry Pride.
Speaker: Hannah Ayres
Over the course of this talk Hannah Ayres (University of Warwick) discussed several individuals she encountered in her own research and addressed them through the lens of trans history. Some of the individuals discussed might be well known to those familiar with queer history (Joan of Arc, Sylvia Rivera) but several lesser known events and individuals are also brought to the forefront.
Link to the reading list here.
Crisis in Community: Key Events in UK Queer History
23rd June 2020
In collaboration with Campus Pride 2020 and Warwick Pride
Speaker: Nick Cherryman
Nick Cherryman took us through some key events in British Queer history. Ranging from the Buggery Act of 1533, and touching on key figures such as Oscar Wilde and Terrance Higgins, this talk looks at moments of crisis in British History and what this meant for the queer community.
A Spotlight On... Section 28
28th July 2020
In collaboration with Campus Pride 2020
Speaker: Nick Cherryman
During this talk Nick Cherryman shone a spotlight on Section 28, its impact and its legacy on the LGBT+ community.
queer/disrupt Launch
Wednesday 30th September
Speakers: Hannah Ayres and Nick Cherryman
This event marked the (re)launch of Queer History Warwick as queer/disrupt.
We went through our plans for the coming year including the Queering the Quarantine archive and exhibition, our new podcast, the launch of our brand new website, upcoming events and our conference: 'Mainstreaming Queerness: The New Queer Vanguard'.
Fattening Queer History, Queering Fat History: The National Fat Women's Conference of 1989
9th November 2020
Chair: Catriona Wilson
Speaker: Carlie Pendleton
Where are the fat queers? In this talk Pendleton discusses the National Fat Women’s Conference held in London by the London Fat Women’s Group on March 18, 1989. Founded on principles of radical lesbian feminism, the LFWG represented the epicentre of fat, queer political activism in London in the 1980s-early 1990s. The workshops offered by the conference, specifically those for fat lesbians, demonstrate the interplay between fat and queer identities during the event. And yet the conference is at best an obscure footnote in modern feminist history. Why?
Reading List
Carlie has provided us with an extensive list of suggested reading so feel free to browse at your leisure!
The Place of Witchcraft in Early Modern Queer History
December 2nd 2020
In collaboration with the Early Modern & Eighteenth Century Centre.
Speaker: Dr Kit Heyam
This talk presents a reassessment of the place of witchcraft accusations in the history of early modern sexual transgression. While it is well known that witchcraft was collocated with sexually transgressive behaviour (as well as with related crimes such as heresy) in medieval and early modern European thought, Heyam argues for the concurrent development of an overlooked paradigm that used witchcraft as a retrospective excuse for transgressive sexual and emotional attraction. They demonstrate that early modern commentators used the discourse of bewitchment as a strategy to negotiate the problem of monarchs’ and others’ unwise, inexplicable or transgressive sexual and emotional attraction.
Queer pedagogy, queer history, and the road to inclusion
December 9th 2020
In collaboration with Warwick SU as part of their Hidden Histories series.
Speaker: Hannah Ayres
What does inclusion look like in university classrooms?
This is a question often posed by equality and diversity departments within universities and the answers presented are often posed as straight forward and simple - don't make students feel uncomfortable, make everyone feel welcome and included etc. Taking queer history (and the study of sexuality and gender in history) as a case study, Ayres' unpacks some of the complications that can arise from trying to incorporate an uncritical politic of inclusion.