OutStories Bristol

Amber Regis:  “John Addington Symonds: from Bristol via Davos to the archive and library”

J A Symonds in his study at Am Hof. Copyright: University of Bristol Special Collections Library.

This lecture will explore the fascinating afterlife of John Addington Symonds’s Memoirs (c.1899-91) — his account of life as a homosexual man in Victorian Britain and Europe, where experience and action were subject to legal repression and the constraints of social custom and prejudice.

In writing his autobiography, Symonds forged a language through which to articulate his desires and sense of self, drawing upon ancient Greek history and literature, the European Renaissance, and the poetry of Walt Whitman. The finished manuscript could not be published in his lifetime; even if Symonds had found a printer willing to set the type, booksellers would have risked prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act. So his manuscript was saved for posterity, passing through the hands of successive custodians and libraries.

The extraordinary story of the Memoirs — their composition and survival — takes us from the streets of Bristol to the mountain tops of Davos, and into the locked safes and strong rooms of the London Library and Bristol University Special Collections.

* * * * *

Amber Regis is Senior Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Sheffield. She is the editor of The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and her work upon Symonds’s final essay collection, In the Key of Blue (1893), was recently the subject of a collaboration with OutAloud, Sheffield’s LGBT community choir, performed at the 2018 Festival of the Mind.

In April 2016, a team from the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, was awarded funding by the Arts Council England via the Oxford University Museums Partnership’s Innovation Fund for the creation of the University’s first cross-collections trail, Out in Oxford: An LGBTQ+ Trail of the University of Oxford’s Collections.

The project was a response to a lecture by Professor Richard Parkinson of the Oriental Institute (previously of the British Museum and author of A Little Gay History) which he gave during LGBT History Month that year. The lecture called for more explicit, not implicit, LGBTQ+ representation in museums and can be watched here: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/great-unrecorded-history-lgbt-heritage-and-world-cultures.

The outcome of the project is a free booklet featuring items from each of the University’s Gardens, Libraries and Museums group (GLAM): the Ashmolean Museum, Bodleian Libraries, Botanic Garden, Museum of the History of Science, Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum, and the Bate Collection in the Faculty of Music. The items featured have been identified by the collections’ staff, but the interpretations have all been written by volunteers who identify as LGBTQ+ or allies. Forewords were kindly provided by Richard Parkinson and Stephen Fry. The trail was launched with a series of spectacular and well-attended events co-curated by the project’s volunteers during LGBT History Month 2017. The project was shortlisted for a Museums + Heritage Award and can be accessed here: www.glam.ox.ac.uk/outinoxford.

Beth Asbury is a graduate of Ancient History and Archaeology, and Egyptology from the University of Birmingham. She has worked for the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, Ministry of State for Antiquities in Cairo, and the Pitt Rivers Museum where she worked on several different projects, including Out in Oxford. In January this year, Beth became the Administrative Assistant for the Public Engagement team in the Ashmolean Museum.

Come and hear Beth speak at the LGBT History Day at Bristol’s M Shed Museum. Free entry.

3:00pm to 3:30pm, Saturday 10th February 2018

Studio Rooms, M Shed, Wapping Road, Bristol, BS1 4RN
Map                   Getting to M Shed

The Studio Rooms are on the first floor, upstairs from the main entrance. M Shed has wheelchair accessible lifts and accessible toilets.

Last September Bristol24/7 launched Talking LGBT+ Bristol – a groundbreaking project set to unearth, document and share LGBT+ life and history in Bristol with a wider audience.

The team at Bristol24/7 want to help others access and learn about Bristol’s LGBT+ heritage.

Over the last few months we have been unearthing stories and finding contributors from the Bristol LGBT+ community and beyond. We completed the first phase of filming in December 2017, with the second and third phases of filming to take place in spring this year. The final film will be shown on the big screen in Millennium Square as part of Bristol Pride. Bristol24/7 will make our Talking LGBT+ documentary available for schools to use as an educational tool and the whole project will also be added as a resource to Bristol Archives.

Bristol24/7 will be showing an exclusive short preview of the project so far. We are still looking for contributors and volunteers to be involved in this amazing project and will be on hand at M Shed to answer any questions.

Drop in on Bristol24/7 at the LGBT History Day at Bristol’s M Shed Museum. Free entry.

12:00pm to 4:30pm, Saturday 10th February 2018

Studio Rooms, M Shed, Wapping Road, Bristol, BS1 4RN
Map                   Getting to M Shed

The Studio Rooms are on the first floor, upstairs from the main entrance. M Shed has wheelchair accessible lifts and accessible toilets.

Bristol24/7 is a Community Interest Company that provides high-quality, independent news and features by experienced and talented journalists and bloggers. Find out what’s happening across Bristol with news, features and what’s on listings on our website and also in our free monthly print magazine.

OutStories Bristol’s highly successful ‘Revealing Stories’ exhibition is on display at Bishopston Library from 1st to 28th February to coincide with LGBT History Month.

The exhibition is based on archival records and oral history interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people associated with Bristol and the surrounding area. Focusing on living memory (c. 1940s to the present) it tells how people fought to shape and control their own lives. It is the story of those who witnessed these changes and helped to make history.

Thursday 1st to Wednesday 28th February 2018

Bristol North Baths,  Gloucester Road,  Bishopston,  Bristol,  BS7 8BN

Map       Opening hours and getting there

Please note: this display comprises vertical text panels only; it doesn’t include any of the objects that were in the original exhibition at Bristol’s M Shed during February/March 2013.

Historic England is the public body that looks after England’s historic environment. We champion and protect historic places, helping people understand, value and care for them. In our South West office in Bristol we are responsible for giving advice on planning decisions, listing and grant applications for Heritage at Risk for the heritage in the entire south west.

As part of our national championing of heritage we launched our Pride of Place campaign which aims to uncover and highlight places of LGBTQ heritage across England, ranging from the frontiers of Roman Britain to the gay pubs and clubs that remain important in our lives today.

It also included the creation of an interactive crowd-sourced map that identifies places that are relevant to LGBTQ heritage and history. Members of the public can contribute to this map. In the Bristol office we want to use this campaign to engage more with our local LGBT community.

Historic England will be showcasing Pride of Place at the LGBT History Day at Bristol’s M Shed Museum, and explaining how you can help contribute to this national resource.

12pm to 4:30pm,     Saturday 10th February 2018

Studio Rooms,    M Shed,    Wapping Road,    Bristol,    BS1 4RN
Map                  Getting to M Shed

The Studio Rooms are on the first floor, upstairs from the main entrance. M Shed has wheelchair accessible lifts and accessible toilets.

Historic England’s Bristol Office

Tom Marshman is launching his new audio tours of M Shed; they will be Mp3 players encased in vintage matchboxes he has collected. Tom has spent many years recording the stories of Bristol’s Older LGBT people, developing verbatim theatre, and wanted to do something more with them, finding a place where they can be permanently. They are tales of jeopardy, injustice and celebration and indulgence! The sound tours are a collaboration with sound artist Rowan Evans.

The idea to put the audio devices in a match box came from one of the stories about a man who met his life partner when he ran out of matches and asked a stranger for a light!

Tom says “It is really exciting for me to have a piece of work that will be a permanent part of the exhibition, so people can request the Mp3 players at the front desk whenever they like and hear the rich everyday stories of Older LGBTQ people living in Bristol.”

It will add a new queer reading on many of the objects that are part of the collection that visitors have become familiar with.

Audiences will be able to walk around the museum and hear the stories that relate to objects in the collection. For example you can listen to how one man fell in love with a bus driver as you sit on the double decker bus that is in M-shed.

Alongside that, Tom will be talking about his new show he is developing and that will premiere in September 2018 in Bristol and that is focused around life in Britain in the 1950’s before decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Come and hear Tom at the LGBT History Day at Bristol’s M Shed Museum. Free entry.

12:00pm to 12:30pm, Saturday 10th February 2018

Studio Rooms, M Shed, Wapping Road, Bristol, BS1 4RN
Map                   Getting to M Shed

The Studio Rooms are on the first floor, upstairs from the main entrance. M Shed has wheelchair accessible lifts and accessible toilets.

Thanks to the Wonder Woman movie, Amazons are all over popular culture right now. Even the British Museum is getting in on the act, with their Scythians exhibition.

The historical people on whom the Amazon myth is based were almost certainly Scythians or some related tribe of horse warriors. But were they lesbians, living in an all-female society? Was their home a Paradise Island somewhere in the Mediterranean? Were there trans women among the Amazons?

As always, the past is far more queer than most people think.

Cheryl Morgan is a science fiction critic and publisher. She is the owner of Wizard’s Tower Press and the Wizard’s Tower Books ebook store. Previously she edited the Hugo Award winning magazine, Emerald City (Best Fanzine, 2004). She also won a Hugo for Best Fan Writer in 2009.

She is a Co-Chair of OutStories Bristol and lectures regularly on both trans history and science fiction and fantasy literature.

Come and hear Cheryl speak at the LGBT History Day at Bristol’s M Shed Museum. Free entry.

2:00pm to 2:30pm, Saturday 10th February 2018

Studio Rooms, M Shed, Wapping Road, Bristol, BS1 4RN
Map               Getting to M Shed

The Studio Rooms are on the first floor, upstairs from the main entrance. M Shed has wheelchair accessible lifts and accessible toilets.

OutStories Bristol is once again partnering with the M Shed Museum to bring you a packed day of talks and activities centred around LGBT History.  Entry is free.

Saturday 10th February 2018,  12pm to 4:30pm

Studio Rooms,    M Shed,    Wapping Road,    Bristol,    BS1 4RN
Map                  Getting to M Shed

The Studio Rooms are on the first floor, upstairs from the main entrance. M Shed has wheelchair accessible lifts and accessible toilets.

Timetable:

12:00 – 12:30   Tom Marshman launching his new LGBT+ audio tour of M Shed’s collections
12:30 – 13:00   Jana Funke – The role of lesbian and bisexual women in the fight for women’s suffrage
13:00 – 13:30   Darryl W Bullock on his book David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music
13:30 – 14:00   Lunch break
14:00 – 14:30   Cheryl Morgan – The Amazons
14:30 – 15:00   Jonathan Cooper – What is the most effective way to secure LGBT+ rights?
15:00 – 15:30   Beth Asbury – Oxford University’s Out in Oxford project
15:30 – 16:00   Justin Bengry – Does the relationship between homosexuality and capitalism have a history?
16:00 – 16:30   Wrap session

14:00 – 16:00   Expressing Sex – an informal drop-in workshop for Young People (16 to 25)

Speakers:

Tom Marshman will be unveiling his new LGBT audio guide to M Shed. Tom is an artist based in Bristol. He actively encourages a dialogue with audiences and participants aiming to create a safe space to share their thoughts and experiences. The results give very evocative authentic glimpses into everyday things. Read more …

2018 is the year in which we celebrate the 100th anniversary of some British women finally getting the vote. Dr Jana Funke from the University of Exeter explores the role of lesbian and bisexual women in the fight for suffrage in the 1910s. What do we know about lesbian and bisexual suffragettes and suffragists? Were they accepted or marginalised in the movement? What did well-known LGBT authors, such as Radclyffe Hall or Virginia Woolf, make of the suffragettes? Can this history inform debates about the relation between LGBT politics and feminism today? Read more ….

Bristol’s Darryl W Bullock will talk about his recent book, David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music, and how LGBT+ people have been central to the history of popular music. The book has been described as ‘a sweeping overview of LGBT musicians… well-researched and brimming with intrigue’ (Kirkus Reviews) and ‘an invaluable resource for anyone interested in LGBT or musical history’ (Lambda Literary). Read more ….

Cheryl Morgan, Co-Chair of OutStories Bristol, Director of The Diversity Trust and Ujima Radio presenter, will talk about the Amazons. Was there really a queendom of warrior women in the ancient world, and if so were they lesbians? Read more …

Jonathan Cooper OBE, Human Rights specialist with experience before English and International courts and tribunals, asks, should the guarantee of our rights depend upon the outcome of a referendum? The people can give, as they did in Ireland and Australia, but they can also take away. That’s what happened in Slovenia and Slovakia. As we reflect upon the struggle for LGBT+ equality, what is the most effective way to secure our rights?

Whilst working for the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, Beth Asbury led the Out in Oxford project, creating, with the help of community volunteers, a trail of LGBTQ+ items across the University’s museums and collections. She will talk about some of those items and how they illuminate LGBTQ+ culture around the world and though history. Read more ….

Does the relationship between homosexuality and capitalism have a history? Justin Bengry, Lecturer in Queer History, Goldsmiths, University of London, will discuss his work on the history of the Pink Pound, demonstrating that it goes back much longer than we thought.  Read more …

Exhibitors:

Historians and literary scholars from the University of Exeter will be running ‘Expressing Sex’, a drop-in workshop for young people exploring history, identity, gender, sexuality and science. This is part of their Rethinking Sexology and Sex & History projects, which you can also learn more about at their stall on the day.  Read more …

Historic England will be showcasing their online map of LGBT+ history Pride of Place and explaining how you can help contribute to this national resource.  Read more ….

Bristol24/7 will show an exclusive preview of their Talking LGBT+ Bristol documentary that will be premiered at this year’s Pride. Read more …..

No Stone Unturned will be previewing their plans for a mobile app game based on Bristol’s LGBT+ history.

Bristol Pride, LGBT Bristol, Freedom Youth and OutStories Bristol will be on hand to talk about their work.

…. and on film:

Watershed and Queer Vision present a preview of A Fantastic Woman by Chilean director Sebastián Lelio, a life-affirming gem about a young transgender woman struggling to live with her grief after the death of her lover and the prejudice she suffers.
Watershed, Saturday 10th February, 18:10.

OutStories Bristol will have a stall at the Stonewall Bristol Community Action Day.

Sunday 1st October 2017,  1:30pm to 5pm

Engine Shed, Station Approach, Bristol, BS1 6QH
Map

We will be joined by groups and organisations in the Bristol area including Stand Against Racism and Inequality, Black Southwest Network, Freedom Youth, Space Off the Record, Midsomer Norton Pride, University of Bath Kaleidoscope, Bristol Mind MindLine Trans+, University of Bristol LGBT Society, Intersectional Feminist Society, Bristol 24/7, LGBT Bristol, Diversity Trust and Outstories Bristol and more.

The afternoon includes speakers and activities as well as a discussion carousel on different topics and LGBT+ experiences.

Free event; book tickets on the Stonewall webpage.

Mapping LGBT+ Bristol is developing our permanent online archive of the LGBT+ history of Bristol and the surrounding region. The stories are presented as a map on this website and also on the Know Your Place website provided by Bristol City Council and neighbouring local authorities. The map is also available as a mobile app (Google Play and iTunes).

Activities include:

• Gathering the stories of LGBT+ people through oral interviews.
• Research in the Bristol Record Office, libraries and other local archives.
• Collating and storing the digital material we collect and uploading it to websites.

Activities are co-ordinated at monthly meetings, usually the second Monday of each month. Everyone is welcome. For further information, get in touch via our contact form.

The next meeting is: