What makes life ‘liveable’ for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) people in Southampton?
by Carla Barrett
Liveable Lives project workshop (Southampton)
Sat 21st February, 12 noon to 3pm
Central Hall, Evans Street, Southampton, S014 1ZA
What makes life ‘liveable’ for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) people? And what makes life not liveable? The Liveable Lives project, based at the University of Brighton, wants to hear from Southampton! Places outside of big cities are often neglected in LGBTQ research in the UK, making this a rare opportunity for Southampton’s LGBTQ people to take part in an international project.
Southampton’s LGBTQ communities are invited to join us on Saturday 21st February, for an interactive project workshop that will explore what makes our lives ‘liveable’ rather than just ‘bearable’, so that life feels like living, and not just surviving. This ground-breaking research will gather stories and experiences of everyday life as an LGBTQ person through activities like drawing maps of our lives; making collages to visualise how we live our lives; and expressing ideas through writing. There will also be the opportunity to join in discussion groups with other LGBTQ people, and to have one-to-one interviews with researchers. Attendees who would like to stay involved in the project after the workshop will be able to take part through their mobile phones, using a quick and easy web-based app!
The workshop will be held at Central Hall, Evans Street, Southampton, SO14 1ZA on Saturday 21st February. LGBTQ people can drop in any time from 12 noon to 3pm, and come and go as suits them throughout the day. Food and drinks will be provided, and the venue is wheelchair accessible. Please bring along partners, friends, and share the invite with your networks.
Those wishing to take part or find out more about the project can contact us via Facebook (www.facebook.com/groups/liveablelives/) or Twitter (@liveablelives), or by sending us an email (liveablelives@brighton.ac.uk).
If you are interested in taking part, you can sign up here: http://goo.gl/forms/rrkY4OdCVK or join the Facebook event here: http://on.fb.me/1GpRu4U. This will help us plan for the numbers who wish to attend and let us contact you with further details about the event.
Annual Southampton Stonewall Lecture – 11 February 2015
by Carla Barrett
The 2015 Southampton Stonewall Lecture will be given by Professor Richard B. Parkinson, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford.
‘GLIMPSES OF A GAY WORLD HISTORY: FROM ANCIENT EGYPT TO THE MODERN MUSEUM’
Wednesday 11 February 2015 – 6:00pm in Lecture Theatre A (Avenue Campus)
The lecture will be chaired by Professor Mark Cornwall
ALL WELCOME!
Professor Parkinson has worked on same-sex desire in ancient Egyptian culture and literature, exploring the possibilities of a ‘queer philology’. This year’s Stonewall lecture will discuss his research on this topic and the wider issue of how and why museums can represent same-sex experiences as integral parts of world cultures. He will discuss his experience of curating a ground-breaking LGBT history project at the British Museum, which drew on objects ranging from ancient Egyptian papyri, German ceramics, images by modern artists such as David Hockney and Bhupen Khakhar, and the Merchant Ivory film ‘Maurice’, in order to present a ‘Little Gay History’ of the world in 40 or so objects from a single museum collection.
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’. The 2013 lecture, ‘Gay Culture in Postwar New York: Community Creation and Conflict’, was given by Professor George Chauncey (Yale). Last year’s lecturer was Professor Laura Doan, speaking about ‘On the Entanglements of Queer Memory and History: The Case of Alan Turing’ .