Happy New Year. 2014 promises to be another fruitful year for the Calgary Gay History Project. Please join us on Thursday, January 16th at the University of Calgary for a lecture and panel discussion on Calgary’s Queer History.
The lecture from 12:30 – 1:30 PM in the History Department (Room SS623), will uncover the hidden social-cultural past of GLBT people in Calgary’s post-war period. In the 1950s and 60s, queers were widely deemed to be mentally ill and often treated as criminals by society. Kevin Allen, from the Calgary Gay History Project, will explore how a growing social and political community with support from key institutions such as the University of Calgary played a strategic role in queer emancipation. This research presentation is co-sponsored by The Institute for Gender Research and the Department of History.
Check out these previous queer history posts: Harold Call at the U of C (1969); and gay bashing invitation (1992), to get a taste of how important the U of C was in advancing new frontiers of thought while sometimes clashing with society at large.
After the lecture, there will be an afternoon panel discussion from 2:30-4:30 PM in The Loft (4th Floor, MacEwan Hall) exploring the topic of doing queer history research itself. Titled, “Doing Queer Public History” the discussion is being co-sponsored by the The Institute for Gender Research and Queers on Campus, and will feature, Kevin Allen from the Calgary Queer History Project, Karen Buckley from the U of C Archives, and Annette Timm, from the U of C Department of History.
Universities, historically, have been centres of liberalization. Even today, this work continues. The University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Service put out a job call this week for their new We are Here: Edmonton Queer History Project. Congratulations to the U of A, we look forward to working closely with them, on our shared Alberta history.
Calgary Gay History 
Sorry, Kevin, I cannot go at that time. All the best. -tmack