Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons^™

Attempted Book Bans: The Censorship Of Queer Themes In The 1950s, María J. Quintana-Rodriguez

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This article aims to explore queer book banning during the 1950s in response to Cold War national defense tactics. The decade witnessed the formation of the first public LGBTQ+ rights organizations in the United States as well as a rise in queer literature and publications. This publicization of queerness in society was seen as a rejection of traditional societal norms and threatened the Cold War-imposed gender ideology. In addition, the fear of Communist expansion led to the conflation of homosexuals and Communists, categorizing queerness and queer-related themes as immoral and as an interference in the United States' fight for democracy. …

Queer Ecologies: A Final Syllabus/Zine Product Of Our Independent Study, Yeh Seo Jung, Ray Craig

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

This zine is the product of our independent study course Queer Ecologies, which is an exploration of bio-social systems using a queer and feminist theoretical lens. We aim to look critically at knowledge formation and construct alternative visions for more just and sustainable relationships between science, nature, and ourselves. While queer theory most directly interrogates the normative structure of heterosexuality both in humans and in biology more broadly, these studies include analyses of hierarchy, power, and value. Queer Ecology can be used to examine phenomena such as climate change, extinction, pollution, species hierarchies, agricultural practices, resource extraction, and human population …

The Afterlife Of Jennifer Laude: Trans Necropolitics And Trans Utopias, Max D. López Toledano

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

Jennifer Laude is a filipino trans woman who was murdered by a visiting member of the United States army in 2014. Her murder led to several protests in the Philippines and in the United States led by both queer and anti-imperialist movements that urged for the rejection of the 'Visiting Forces Agreement' in the Philippines. This essay explores how Laude's murder is located in a climate of 'trans necropolitics' that allocates death and disposability to unruly trans and brown bodies who fail to comply with cis-normative gender ideals. This essay understands her murder (and her afterlife) beyond her individual body, …

Portrait Of Same-Sex Desire: Lesbian (Mis)Representations In Nineteenth-Century French Art, Jessica N. Mummert

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

In late nineteenth-century France, lesbianism became a heightened topic of interest due to scientific, social, and political discourse surrounding female sexuality. From this discourse stemmed a small but significant outpouring of lesbian artworks by male artists. Rendering the lesbian as a hypervisible, hypersexual figure for men to project their desires and fears onto, these artworks communicated concerns over sexuality, morality, feminism, class, and gender roles. Traditionally, historiography on this topic tends to focus on one mode of lesbian representation at a time or discusses lesbian art en masse. This scholarship has highlighted some different representations and the social circumstances that …

Positive Women: Emotion, Memory, And The Power Of Narrative In Women Organized To Respond To Life-Threatening Diseases, 1991-2020, Eleanor Naiman

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Note: In lieu of an abstract, this is the article's first paragraph.

"By 1992, the AIDS epidemic in the United States had reached seemingly catastrophic proportions. Over ten years after the first published report of AIDS-related lung infection, the number of AIDS cases in the United States far exceeded 100,000. It would be four years until the FDA approval of the first protease inhibitor. Over ten thousand women had been diagnosed with the disease, and experts expected over ninety thousand more were already infected. The disease, lacking effective treatment, increasingly struck women and people of color in the early 1990s; …

Theatrical Illness: Tuberculosis And Hiv As Presented By "La Boheme" And "Rent", Jessica Downing

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Note: In lieu of an abstract, this is the article's first paragraph.

"The musical Rent made its Broadway debut on January 25, 1996, a century after the opening performance of the opera, La Boheme. This correlation was a coincidence, though Rent draws significantly on the story of La Boheme, to the extent that a New York Times reviewer deemed it a "contemporary answer to Puccini's 'Boheme."' Each of these productions presents the troubles and tragedies of the bohemian lifestyle in a specific time and place-La Boheme in Paris during the 1830s and Rent in New York City during 1989. Disease, …