'Gay Culture in Postwar New York: Community Creation and Conflict’ Event

In this lecture George Chauncey argues for the importance of the creative arts in developing New York City's postwar gay culture. He explores how the involvement of thousands of gay men in fashion, design, theatre, music, and retail influenced the location of gay neighborhoods as well as the tenor of gay bar culture; how gay culture shaped the literary and consumer tastes of many gay men; and how the idea that gay men bore a special relationship to the creative arts shaped their attitude toward themselves at a time when homosexuals were often demonized by the press and public officials.

George Chauncey is the Samuel Knight Professor of History at Yale University, chair of the History Department, and the co-director of the Yale Research Initiative on the History of Sexualities.  Best known for his book Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (1994), he has participated as a historian in more than twenty gay rights cases, most recently testifying as an expert witness on the history of antigay discrimination in the two marriage equality cases now before the US Supreme Court.  In 2012 he was awarded Yale's Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities.

The Southampton Stonewall Lecture is an annual lecture at the University of Southampton devoted to the history of homosexuality or LGBT history. The purpose of the lecture is to educate the present about the past; to showcase thinking and research about LGBT history; and to enhance the University of Southampton's remit of promoting sexual diversity in the regional community.

The inaugural Stonewall Lecture was given in March 2012 by Angela Mason CBE, former executive director of the Stonewall charity. Her lecture, drawing a large audience, was entitled: ‘Twenty-Five Years On: The Fight for LGBT Rights in the UK'. Follow this link to watch the lecture.