Thursday 18 October 2012

LGBT History Project meeting - 18 October 2012

I feel a bit guilty as I rarely report on our meetings, which I intended to when I started this blog. Bad Chris!

Today we met at the National Archives in Kew (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/), our most frequent venue.

We weren't researching, most of that is inhand for the 2013 edition of Past2Present; we were planning out how the magazine will be filled. Fingers crossed, we think we have some interesting stuff for you. Hope you can wait till February.

In addition, we've been working on a set of panels for a mobile exhibition on LGBT History and our work. Just starting but it already feels quite exciting to be doing something like that.

More meetings planned for later this year to help us finalise all that.

The 2013 Past2Present will be available online towards the end of next January, ready for LGBT History Month in February.

In the meantime, the previous editions are still available for download:
2009: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24371157/Past2Present-2009.pdf
2010: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24371157/Past2Present-2010.pdf
2011: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24371157/Past2Present-2011.pdf
2012: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24371157/Past2Present-2012.pdf

Monday 8 October 2012

The 8 most important black LGBT heroes in history

Gay Star News has posted an article on black LGBT heroes, which it seems appropriate to use in October, which is Black History Month here in the UK, while in the US they are celebrating LGBT History Month.

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/8-most-important-black-lgbt-heroes-history081012

The article includes Brits Linda Bellos and Justin Fashanu, both of whom were highlighted in the 2010 Edition of Past2Present (pages 37 and 44, respectively). You can download that edition of Past2Present here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24371157/Past2Present%202010%20v2.3.pdf

Other editions of Past2Present:
2009: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24371157/p2p%202009%20-%20Final.pdf
2011: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24371157/Past2Present-Feb2011.pdf
2012: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24371157/P2P2012.pdf

Saturday 6 October 2012

Sir Frederick Leighton, Bt

Sir Frederic Leighton, Bt, (1830-1896) was an English painter and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical and classical subject matter. Leighton was bearer of the shortest-lived peerage in history; after only one day his hereditary peerage ended with his death.

While there is no black and white evidence to show that Leighton was attracted to men, his paintings and scultures give us some clues.

More on the 1st (and last) Baron Leighton here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Leighton,_1st_Baron_Leighton

The Advcoate's site has a slideshow of some of his work:
http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/artist-spotlight/2012/10/06/artist-spotlight-frederic-leighton#slide-1