Marlene Dietrich’s sultry sexuality is the best-remembered part of the 1930 film The Blue Angel, yet embedded in the film and its afterlife is a radical history of antifascist resistance. Marybeth Hamilton explores.
Tag: LGBTQ history
Queer Lives: Public History and the Queer Archive
In episode three of our four-part series on Queer Activisms, Laura Forster is joined by Ajamu X and E-J Scott to discuss public history, the queer archive, and what it means to queer the museum. Listen now to the conversation on the History Workshop Podcast.
AIDS and the Politics of Grief
What lessons does the history of AIDS activism hold as we navigate the COVID pandemic? Matt Cook and Debra Levine join Marybeth Hamilton in discussion for the History Workshop podcast.
The Slippery History of the Dental Dam
As an object, the dental dam awkwardly straddles the history of AIDS activism and queer sexuality, acting as an assertion that sex doesn’t require the presence of a penis to be real sex, while acknowledging simultaneously that such sex still carries risks. The dental dam was deployed as an object for sexual use in an attempt to abate the risk of HIV transmission, but its questionable efficacy as a barrier against the virus has reduced it, for some at least, to a latex relic of historical fears.
Gay Health Action and the fight against AIDS in 1980s Ireland
James Grannell explores the important role that Gay Health Action played in demystifying information about HIV and AIDS prevention in 1980s Ireland. GHA’s matter-of-fact publications sought to ‘meet people where they were’.
Radical Objects: MaThoko’s Post Box & the Birth of the Black LGBT Movement in South Africa
John Marnell on MaThoko’s old post box, which played an important role as a key communication node for the nascent LGBT movement in South Africa during the 1980s and 1990s.