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Full-Text Articles in History
"Who Is Sleeping In The Bed Of Sodom?", Nancy Levene
"Who Is Sleeping In The Bed Of Sodom?", Nancy Levene
Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)
The question that I am left with from the extraordinary presentations over the conference's two days borrows from Rabbi Steve Greenberg's and Ludger Viefhues's discussion of the multiple images of the biblical "Sodom". Conventionally Sodom has signified a place of sexual deviance or, conversely, sexual censorship. But as Greenberg pointed out, in many traditional commentaries on the story of the condemnation of Sodom, the issue was not that the townspeople were engaged in forbidden sexual practices, but that they were violent and hostile to those in need of shelter and food.
Excerpt From Wrestling With Rustin, Or The Left Will Rise Again, Maybe, John D'Emilio
Excerpt From Wrestling With Rustin, Or The Left Will Rise Again, Maybe, John D'Emilio
Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)
Four years ago, CLAGS sponsored a conference on the state of gay and lesbian history. I was one of several presenters in a session on biography. None of us on the panel had consulted beforehand. But by the beginning of the third or fourth presentation, a common pattern had emerged, and the audience erupted with laughter. Each one of us had opened our remarks with a mixture of apology and denial: we each were not, we assured the audience, writing a biography!