What can the biography of William Mcllroy, a gay humanist from post-war Northern Ireland, tell us about the negotiation of non-conforming identities in the face of inflexible religious conservatism? Charlie Lynch investigates the…
What is gained when 20th century Queer history is brought into the classroom? Claire Holliss discusses her experience of visiting the archive to find sources for her A-Level students.
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.
What can The London Women's Handbook reveal about the Greater London Council and radical feminist organising? Lucy Brownson explores the 1986 Handbook which captures a turning point in British political and social life.
There is an urgent need for programmes that train people to research Queer History and Black British History. The first masters' programmes in these areas, at Goldsmiths, now face an existential threat due to the College's redundancy…
This World AIDS Day, Clifford McManus discusses the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt as a radical object of protest and activism, and a symbol of love and remembrance.
History Workshop Journal and History Workshop Online editors urge withdrawal of threatened redundancies at Goldsmiths, which especially target the History and English & Creative Writing departments
Elly Robson is joined by Nazmia Jamal and Syeda Ali to discuss queer education: the violent silence of Section 28, how it was resisted, and what lessons we can draw from it today.
How did the movements for bodily autonomy by those without the capacity to conceive - travestis, maricas, and gays – contribute to Argentina's recent legalization of abortion? Marce Butierrez and Patricio Simonetto trace the genealogy of…
'I have felt a chill of recognition'. Matt Cook interrogates the emotional resonances invoked by Channel 4’s TV drama serial 'It’s A Sin' and what this means for the recognition of memories of grief in suspension.
November 20th marks Trans Day of Remembrance, an annual day of mourning for trans lives stolen by violence in the past 12 months. While many remembrance ceremonies are now moving from community centres to online platforms, the central…
The archive has been portrayed by historians for many years as a ‘magical’ place of neutral enquiry. In fact, it has historically been used in the perpetuation of many abuses by the state and continues to play a role in privileging some…
Early modern women and men possessed complex capacities for friendship, love, and devotion, and the nuances of these partnerships defy and challenge our received assumptions about early modern heterosexual and heterosocial relationships.…
Frank O'Hara insisted that poetry should be 'between two persons instead of two pages'. The enduring friendship between Allen Ginsberg and Frank O'Hara reveals the ways in which it was possible to resist the post-war ideals of…
This is the first in a series of pieces about Radical Friendship. The feature is intended as an exploration of different configurations of friendship, both intimate and symbolic, and the radical potential of these relationships.
"I think I was seeking among the tombs of the dead those lost friends; I would not let them go: and with the guiding hand of scholarship and the eye of a historian, against all expectations I found such friendship there in those monuments"…
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…
Jill Liddington is an award-winning historian and writer. Author of One Hand Tied Behind Us (1978), The Long Road to Greenham (1979) and Rebel Girls (2006), Jill's work has always championed women's stories. In 1984 Jill discovered Anne…
In the year marking the 50th anniversaries of both the Stonewall Riots in the US and West Germany's decriminalization of male homosexuality, the Gay Museum Berlin has launched an exhibition exploring those transatlantic connections.…
