OutStories Bristol in collaboration with the University of Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition (IGRCT) present the 11th John Addington Symonds Annual Lecture.
Saturday 5th October 2024, 2pm to 4pm
The Old Council Chamber, Wills Memorial Building, Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1RJ
First floor of Wills Building – go up main stairs and turn right
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How to Bring Your Canon Up Gay: John Addington Symonds, Eve Sedgwick, and the Intellectual History of Male Homosexuality
Symonds in 1880s
Photo: Eveleen Myers
Sedgwick in 2007 Photo: David Shankbone
In his talk, Dr Sam Rutherford will compare the life and work of the English classicist and historian John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) with that of the pioneering American queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950-2009), to interrogate the history of Western gay male culture and the creation of gay male communities.
Dr Rutherford will discuss how Western gay male cultural heritage of the 19th and 20th centuries, drawing on Greek antiquity, became bound up in racism and transmisogyny, but could also become a site of transmasculine possibility. Through a trans reading of Sedgwick’s lifelong desire for belonging in gay male community, Dr Rutherford proposes a different understanding of gay cultural heritage which moves beyond narrow conceptions of individual, ‘born this way’ gay (or trans) subjectivity.
Sam Rutherford is Lecturer in LGBTQ+ History / History of Sexuality at the University of Glasgow. His first book, Teaching Gender: The British University and the Rise of Heterosexuality, 1860–1939, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2025.
The event is free and open to everyone. Tea and coffee will be provided after the talk – and cake to celebrate Symonds’ 184th birthday! He was born 5th October 1840.
This is also an opportunity to chat with members of OutStories Bristol about our activities.
Please register to attend on Eventbrite – not essential but helps us anticipate numbers for catering.
You do not need to print your ticket or show on entry.
The talk is an annual celebration of the life of John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), Bristol-based writer, art historian and pioneer of homosexual rights.
This event is held by OutStories Bristol in collaboration with the University of Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition (IGRCT). Our thanks to the IGRCT for hosting this event.
Find out more about the IGRCT on their website; you can also find them on Facebook and X (Twitter).
