Committee on LGBT History Announces LAS Professor as John Boswell Prize Recipient
The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History (CLGBTH) announced the winner of the John Boswell Prize. The John Boswell Prize recognizes an outstanding book on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual and/or queer (LGBTQ) history published in English.
Professor of History and Gender and Women's Studies John D'Emilio was awarded the John Boswell Prize for his recent publication My Desire for History: Essays in Gay, Community, & Labor History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011). D'Emilio's co-authors were Estelle Freedman and Allan Bérubé.
My Desire for History surveys the pioneering work of the late Allan Bérubé and makes clear his genius as a public historian. The essays themselves—part history, part memoir—are wide-ranging, accessible, and powerful, and include several selections from Bérubé’s unpublished manuscript on the history of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union. Taken together, the pieces offer not only a retrospective of where the field has been, but an agenda for the future in terms of bringing race and class more centrally into LGBT history. D’Emilio and Freedman’s introduction situates Bérubé’s journey within a broader story about the origins of LGBT history in community history projects. It is a moving reminder of the generosity and interdependence that have sustained this field from its earliest days.
The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History, an affiliated society of the American Historical Association, encourages the development of historical scholarship and instruction in LGBTQ studies, promotes local LGBTQ archives and public history projects, and seeks to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ historians.