Status Updates From Queer Cambridge: An Alterna...

So interesting to me how my research interests have somewhat followed Simon Goldhill’s without me really knowing who he was. Starting with Greek theatre and tragedy on to the queer 19th & 20th centuries at Oxbridge with the Bensons and Forster. Maybe i gotta start applying for programs at Cambridge

"The community finds its self-representation in the continuity which is these men’s [Daie Rylands', J.T. Sheppard's, etc.] transformations. The stories about them, told by themselves and others, become a collective memory of the institution and its space for relationships, its topography of desire, inhabited over time. The fading pictures of the era are part of this constructed memory. "

"As the language and recognition of homosexuality are under construction, a key trajectory of its formulation ishow and whether there is a politics of homosexuality. [...] we can see the grounding of what will become by the 60s [...] a demand that the politics of (homo)sexuality is transformed not just for personal fulfilment but for the sake of society. [... A] politics of homosexuality under construction."

"The experience of sexuality over a lifetime is one of transformation, not essence."

"Beyond the exaggeration, the student showing-off and the gestures of knowing transgression, recognising a gay community was a bold and desired aim; breaking the silence in shared disclosure a relief; challenging disavowal and secrecy a self-recognition of a modernity to set against Victorian demands."