The Conceptual Tyranny of Homosexuality February 28, 2011

In celebration of LGBT History Month Jeff Evans of Manchester Metropolitan University will deliver a lecture entitled 'The Conceptual Tyranny of Homosexuality' on Monday 28 February in Lady Hale Lecture Theatre starting at 5.30pm.

About the lecture:

The presentation will consider two aspects of the historical process by which the notion of 'homosexuality' and its binary opposite heterosexuality (or 'not homosexuality') gained intellectual and public currency. The introduction will review the emergent historiography and language with which the historians can interpret the sources. It will focus in particular on the recent and challenging contributions of the scholars Prof. Halperin (Michigan Uni.) and Prof. Sedgwick (Berkeley).

The second aspect of the talk will focus on new and as yet unpublished evidence detailing the attempts to police a binary division of the population of North West of England into 'hetero' or 'not-homo' Northerners. The evidence considered with include statistical evidence from 60,000 court cases heard in North West Quarter Session Courts 1850 to 1971 together with coverage of specific events including 'show trials' and the unprecedented police raid of the Manchester Drag Ball of 1880.

The talk will be given by Jeff Evans who is in the second year of his PhD at MMU researching this topic. He is a graduate of Salford and Manchester Universities.

Register online now

Please reserve your place: Paul Butlin on 0161 295 5114 or p.butlin@salford.ac.uk.

Official Website: http://www.salford.ac.uk/events/details/1431