Queer History Queer Memory

Abstract

If we are serious about producing knowledge of the past in all its complexity—that is, as something we think that we know already as well as pastness in all its radical strangeness—it is vital to grasp the epistemological consequences in conceptualizing practices in oppositional terms, a tendency pervasive among historians and queer specialists alike. Using the case of Alan Turing to unpick this oppositional logic reveals the paralyzing effects of polarization but also, and perhaps more urgently, the paramount importance in forging any number of pathways in creating queer narratives of pastness, including the unmaking of history. Accounting for the messiness and complexity of our movements through the labyrinth of history and memory calls for recognizing the boundaries of praxis as delineated and mutable, conflicting and intertwined.

The archival riot: Travesti/Trans* audiovisual memory politics in twenty-first-century Argentina

“…Recent studies addressed the archival turn in grassroot feminist organizations (Eichhorn, 2013), in particular some of them have paid attention to the emergence of trans* archives in the global south (Correa et al, 2019; Theron and Kgositau, 2015). Queer studies’ approaches to identity have helped to address epistemological challenges in order to study LGTBIQ+ oral history and memories (Doan, 2017; Jennings, 2004), as well as also to develop relevant insights into queer memories in times of the digital turn (Cherasia, 2020), and the materiality of the archive (Tortorici, 2018; Van Doorn, 2016). In the Argentine context, queer studies have showed how LGTBIQ+ movements have created tensions with human right institutional discourses (Rizki, 2020b; Theumer et al, 2020).…”

Queer Memory in (Re)constituting the Trans Lesbian 1970s in the UK

“…13 Numerous scholars have emphasised that collective memory may tell us more about its own present than the past. 14 Erasures or purges within the archives and collective memory carry considerable affective force, 15 and they occur alongside (and potentially supplement) trauma and active processes of forgetting by the subjects who have experienced harm. 16 In an on-going context of anti-trans political backlash from the far right and transphobic feminists, the stakes of transfeminist herstory and stories remain significant.…”

Queer(y)ing Mathematical Knowledge and Practices

“…Equally noteworthy, the book also serves as the foundation for several popularizations of Turing's life, including the film The Imitation Game (Grossman et al 2014) discussed below. Since Hodges, and among others, Copeland (2004Copeland ( , 2017 has produced books and materials that focus primarily on Turing's accomplishments in the field of mathematics, the development of computing technology, and the area now commonly referred to as artificial intelligence. New resources and perspectives can be found in Copeland's biography, Turing: A Pioneer for the Information Age (2012), particularly with respect to the untimely and ambiguous aspects of Turing's death.…”