Publishing Queer/Queer Publishing: a Senate House Library Conference

Queer Publishing: a Senate House Library Conference

9.30 a.m. – 5.00 p.m.

Thursday 11 October 2018

Senate House (room TBC)

Following the successful Queer Between the Covers season, Senate House Library is hosting a one-day conference with talks and discussion exploring queer publishing in an English language context.

The presence of queer works on twentieth century publishers’ lists tended to represent complex processes of equivocation, marked by streams of open titillation and multi-layered camouflage.

Novels of queer love could be presented in a number of ways; mainstream firms could publish as examining ‘social problems’, pulp presses would release copies with lurid covers with the promise of erotic excitement or simply printed in severely limited and expensive editions or imprints to avoid censure.  

This fragmented world, driven by simultaneous repression of and prurient interest in queer lifestyles, means that it is difficult to delineate a broad history of queer publishing. Through this conference, we are looking to explore this world of queer publishing and share perspectives to encourage further research on queer literature and broaden understanding of queer literary history.

Conference Programme:

9:30 – 9:45:                    Registration & refreshments

9:45 – 10:00:                  Welcome & overview of conference

10:00 – 10:55:              

  • Teleny: a Tale of Two Cities - Will Visconti (School of Advanced Study, University of London & Central Saint Martins)
  • Ronald Firbank and Grant Richards, Midwives of Camp Modernism - Dickon Edwards (Birkbeck, University of London)

10:55 – 11:10:               Break

11:10 – 12:05:              

  • ‘From the Page & Into Your Heart’: Publishing Queer in the British Poetry Revival - Luke Roberts (King’s College London)
  • ‘A Gay Presence’: Publication, Revision and Desire in the Work of John Wieners - David Grundy (University of Cambridge)

12:05 – 1:00:

  • Midwestern Farmers’ Daughters: Heartland Values and Cloaked Resistance in the Novels of Valerie Taylor  - Jennifer Dentel (Gerber/Hart Library and Archives)
  • A (Very) Brief History of Lesbian Publishing - Gail Chester (Independent Scholar)

1:00 – 1:45:                    Lunch

1:45 – 2:40:

  • Derek Jarman’s Queer Publishing Project: Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio & Queer Edward II - Alexandra Parsons (University College London)
  • Queer Publishing in Germany - Anke Vogel (Johannes Gutenberg-University)

2:40 – 2:55: Break

2:55 – 3:50:

  • The Queer Art of Book Arts: Making My Gay Way in Artists’ Books - Jeremy Dixon (Book Artist)
  • The Halliwell / Orton Library Book Interventions: A case of subversive publishing - Jim Pennington (Independent Scholar)

3:55 – 4:55:

  • Immanion Press: A Case Study of Queer Community Publication - Charles Ledbetter (Universität Tübingen)
  • A (Queer) Archive of Our Own: Fanfiction in the Digital Age - Maayan Priel (Goldsmiths, University of London)
  • Queering Popular Culture: Fan Fiction, Star Trek and Homosexual Romance - Sam Fleming (University of Wolverhampton)

4:55 – 5:00:

  • Final thoughts & Close

Tickets

Your ticket includes refreshments and a sandwich lunch. Please get in touch with the team at shl.whatson@london.ac.uk if you have any specific dietary requirements or food allergies.

General Admission: £17

Concession: £10

(concession tickets include Friends of Senate House Library, Students, University of London staff, unwaged and over 60’s)