Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History (Oxford Oral History Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199742731 ISBN 13: 9780199742738

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History is the first book to provide serious scholarly insight into the methodological practices that shape lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer oral histories. Each chapter pairs an oral history excerpt with an essay in which the oral historian addresses his or her methods and practices. With an afterword by John D'Emilio, this collection enables readers to examine the role memory, desire, sexuality, and gender play in documenting LGBTQ communities and cultures.

The historical themes addressed include 1950s and '60s lesbian bar culture; social life after the Cuban revolution; the organization of transvestite social clubs in the U.S. midwest in the 1960s; Australian gay liberation activism in the 1970s; San Francisco electoral politics and the career of Harvey Milk; Asian American community organizing in pre-AIDS Los Angeles; lesbian feminist "sex war" cultural politics; 1980s and '90s Latina/o transgender community memory and activism in San Francisco; and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The methodological themes include questions of silence, sexual self-disclosure and voyeurism, the intimacy between researcher and narrator, and the social and political commitments negotiated through multiple oral history interviews. The book also examines the production of comparative racial and sexual identities and the relative strengths of same-sexuality, cross-sexuality, and cross-ideology interviewing.

About this title

About the Author

Nan Alamilla Boyd is professor of women and gender studies, San Francisco State University and author of Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965.

Horacio N. Roque Ramírezis associate professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara and author of the forthcoming Queer Latino San Francisco: An Oral History, 1960s-1990s.

Review

"Students of the LGBTQ movement will find the excerpts thought provoking. Oral historians and researchers who use oral history will profit from reading the excellent commentaries...Highly recommended."--CHOICE

"This exciting, well-conceived collection examines the centrality of oral history to the development of LGBTQ history over the last four decades. Vitally important, this ground-breaking book will prove significant to any number of students and scholars of history, ethnography, and American studies."--John Howard, King's College London

"With its innovative format-oral history transcripts combined with comments about the interview process--Bodies of Evidence powerfully demonstrates the methodological value of queer oral history. As documents of intimacy, sexuality, and the everyday, both the interviews and the behind-the-scenes stories make for compelling reading."--Ann Cvetkovich, University of Texas at Austin

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0199742731
• ISBN 13: 9780199742738
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312
• Editor: Boyd Nan Alamilla