Not that long ago, an eager reader could have read in a single summer all the books on LGBTQ+ history that had been written. Now, more and more books are being published all the time. “Book Shelf” is an attempt to introduce you to some of those books and encourage you to read them and learn more about their subjects. We provide short summaries of the book and a link to the publisher's website. The Book Shelf highlights the most recent five books added and then features all of our books in alphabetical order. If you are an author and want us to add your book to the Book Shelf, please contact us at marcs@sfsu.edu.
A tidal wave of panic surrounded homosexuality and AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s, the period commonly called 'The AIDS Crisis'. With the advent of antiretroviral drugs in the mid '90s, however, the meaning of an HIV diagnosis radically changed. These game-changing drugs now enable many people living with HIV to lead a healthy, regular life, but how has this dramatic shift impacted the representation of gay men and HIV in popular culture?
Positive Images is the first detailed examination of how the relationship between gay men and HIV has transformed in the past two decades. From Queer as Folk to Chemsex, The Line of Beauty to The Normal Heart, Dion Kagan examines literature, film, TV, documentaries and news coverage from across the English-speaking world to unearth the socio-cultural foundations underpinning this 'post-crisis' period. His analyses provide acute insights into the fraught legacies of the AIDS Crisis and its continued presence in the modern queer consciousness.
This comprehensive reference guide tracks the development of the HIV/AIDS pandemic as it occurred in Toronto, Canada, during the years 1981 through 1990. Each entry in the chronology is combined with a brief bibliography of sources. Coverage is selective, and focuses on news reports and articles published in local mainstream newspapers and magazines as well as the gay press. Special attention has been given to important milestones, including the formation of community-based AIDS organizations, political action, lobbying, and fundraising, as well as demonstrations and memorials. In addition, artistic and cultural contributions related to AIDS as it was experienced in Toronto are included, such as books, dramatic productions, exhibitions, and films. Important developments elsewhere that were reported in the local Toronto press are included, such as the deaths of Rock Hudson and Ryan White, and the discovery of HIV. Appendices provide supplementary information on additional reading and a listing of names on the Toronto AIDS Memorial for the first ten years.
The women’s suffrage movement, much like many other civil rights movements, has an important and often unrecognized queer history. In Public Faces, Secret Lives Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of genders and sexualities. However, owing to the constant pressure to present a “respectable” public image, suffrage leaders publicly conformed to gendered views of ideal womanhood in order to make women’s suffrage more palatable to the public.
Rouse argues that queer suffragists did take meaningful action to assert their identities and legacies by challenging traditional concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. Queer suffragists also built lasting alliances and developed innovative strategies in order to protect their most intimate relationships, ones that were ultimately crucial to the success of the suffrage movement. Public Faces, Secret Lives is the first work to truly recenter queer figures in the women’s suffrage movement, highlighting their immense contributions as well as their numerous sacrifices.
Last Call South Florida sweeps aside the glitter and glamour of the Sunshine State’s LGBTQ nightlife scene to reveal the vibrant tapestry of real people who thrived on both sides of the bar. From the harrowing days of bar raids and police arrests to the triumphs of hard-won rights, this book dives deep into the lives of those who made history.
Meet the investors and entrepreneurs who built the foundation, the entertainers, bartenders, go-go boys, drag performers, and “bar celebrities” who brought life to the stage, and the customers who found solace and community in these havens. This isn’t just a nightlife chronicle; it’s a celebration of a resilient community that emerged stronger from every challenge.
What makes South Florida’s LGBTQ bar scene unique is its dazzling blend of glamour, diversity, and unyielding spirit. Historians Fred Fejes and Rick Karlin have meticulously researched this distinctive community, covering an era from Prohibition to the present day. Focusing from Palm Beach to Broward, and Miami-Dade to Key West, they capture the essence of a community that has withstood the test of time and adversity.
Fejes and Karlin’s journey unearthed countless personal stories and experiences, bringing the history of South Florida’s LGBTQ bar community to life. Their extensive archival research and interviews have culminated in a captivating book that informs and entertains.
Last Call South Florida presents a rich tapestry of recollections, memories, histories, and artifacts. It’s not just a book; it’s a vital contribution to LGBTQ history, preserving the legacy of a community that shaped the cultural landscape of South Florida. Dive into this fascinating chronicle and celebrate the vibrant, resilient spirit of South Florida’s LGBTQ bar community.
Though today’s LGBTQ people owe a lot to the generations who came before
them, their historical inheritances are not always obvious.
Working with the archives of the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Historical
Society, artist E.G. Crichton decided to do something to bridge this generation
gap. She selected 19 innovative LGBTQ artists, writers, and musicians, then
paired each of them with a deceased person whose personal artifacts are part of
the archive.
Including 25 pages of vivid images, Matchmaking in the Archive documents this
monumental creative project and adds essays by Jonathan D. Katz, Michelle
Tea, and Chris Vargas, who describe their own unique encounters with the
ghosts of LGBTQ history. Together, they make the archive come alive in
remarkably intimate ways.
Evidence of Being opens on a grim scene: Washington DC’s gay black community in the 1980s, ravaged by AIDS, the crack epidemic, and a series of unsolved murders, seemingly abandoned by the government and mainstream culture. Yet in this darkest of moments, a new vision of community and hope managed…
Fashioning Sapphism draws on the tools of historical inquiry, the theoretical strengths of feminist and queer theories, and the interpretive strategies of various disciplines to scrutinize the social, cultural and political context surrounding the 1928 publication of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of…
Beginning in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, a new generation of LGBT students in California began to organize publicly on college and university campuses, inspired by contemporaneous social movements and informed by California’s rich history of LGBT community formation and political…
This comprehensive reference guide tracks the development of the HIV/AIDS pandemic as it occurred in Toronto, Canada, during the years 1981 through 1990. Each entry in the chronology is combined with a brief bibliography of sources. Coverage is selective, and focuses on news reports and articles…
Hospital Time is a memoir about friendship, family, and caregiving in the age of AIDS. Amy Hoffman, a writer, lesbian activist, and former editor of Gay Community News, chronicles with fury and unflinching honesty her experience serving as primary caretaker for her friend and colleague, Mike Riegle,…
Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the trailblazing restaurant Mother Courage of New York City, Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses is the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and…
The variety of gay life in Chicago is too abundant and too diverse to be contained in a single place. But since 1981, the Gerbert/Hart Library & Archives on the city’s North Side has strived to do just that, amassing and cataloging a wealth of records related to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender,…
Last Call South Florida sweeps aside the glitter and glamour of the Sunshine State’s LGBTQ nightlife scene to reveal the vibrant tapestry of real people who thrived on both sides of the bar. From the harrowing days of bar raids and police arrests to the triumphs of hard-won rights, this book dives…
LGBT activism is often imagined as a self-contained struggle, inspired by but set apart from other social movements. Lavender and Red recounts a far different story: a history of queer radicals who understood their sexual liberation as intertwined with solidarity against imperialism, war, and…
This authoritative reference guide covers the first twelve years of the organized homophile/gay liberation movement in Canada, from 1964 (when the Association for Social Knowledge [ASK], Canada's first large-scale homophile organization, was formed in Vancouver) through 1975 (the year of the…
This comprehensive reference guide is a continuation of Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada: A Selected Annotated Chronology, 1964–1975. It starts where the first volume left off, and highlights some of the seminal events and people involved in the fight for gay rights in Canada to the end of 1981.…
Letters to ONE: Gay and Lesbian Voices from the 1950s and 1960s is an edited companion volume to Loftin’s monograph, Masked Voices. Letters to ONE contains 127 letters written from 1953 to 1965 to the first openly gay magazine in the United States. Most of the letters reproduced in this book were…
Bayard Rustin is one of the most important social justice activists in mid-twentieth-century U.S. history. He was a critical figure in the movement for racial justice and equality. Before Martin Luther King, Jr., before Malcolm X, Rustin was working to bring the cause to the forefront of America’s…
Masked Voices: Gay Men and Lesbians in Cold War America analyzes approximately 1000 letters written to ONE, the first openly gay magazine in the United States, from 1953 to 1965. In these letters, a diverse cross-section of gay men and lesbians across the U.S. and beyond shared their anxieties about…
Though today’s LGBTQ people owe a lot to the generations who came before
them, their historical inheritances are not always obvious.
Working with the archives of the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Historical
Society, artist E.G. Crichton decided to do something to bridge this generation
gap.…
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America was first published in 1991 by Columbia University Press; won the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Award for non-fiction in 1992; was selected as the “Editor’s Choice” at the…
Between 1873 and 1879, the Prefecture of the Police in Paris kept a ledger of arrests for public offenses against decency, which they entitled “Pederasts and Others.” In it they included male prostitutes, thieves, and vagrants, as well as men who sought the company and sexual favors of other men. In…
A tidal wave of panic surrounded homosexuality and AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s, the period commonly called 'The AIDS Crisis'. With the advent of antiretroviral drugs in the mid '90s, however, the meaning of an HIV diagnosis radically changed. These game-changing drugs now enable many people…
The women’s suffrage movement, much like many other civil rights movements, has an important and often unrecognized queer history. In Public Faces, Secret Lives Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of…
In September 1897 Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) contemplated crafting a poem to his new love, western writer Charles Warren Stoddard. Recently arrived in California, Noguchi was in awe of the established writer and the two had struck up a passionate correspondence. Still, he viewed their relationship as…