“Archives of Feeling” revisited: the AIDS crisis in Britain c.1987
In this talk to mark World AIDS Day 2023, Matt looks at a key turning point in the history of the AIDS crisis in Britain. Drawing chiefly on the astonishing testimonies of around 600 largely straight men and women, he explores the feelings at stake in the epidemic, how they related to press and politics, how they shaped everyday lives, and how they played out for those dealing most directly with the escalating crisis. He argues that such ‘archives of feeling’ are fundamental to our understanding of social and intimate lives – past and present. And further, that returning to such moments of emotional complexity might allow us to see more clearly the dangers which threaten us now.
About the speaker: Matt Cook joins Oxford University in October 2023 as the Jonathan Cooper Professor of the History of Sexuality. He works on queer history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and is the author of London and the Culture of Homosexuality (2003), Queer Domesticities (2014) and Queer Beyond London (2022). He has worked extensively with the museums, archives and heritage sectors on issues of LGBTQ representation and is an editor of History Workshop Journal. He was previously Professor of Modern History and Director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre at Birkbeck, University of London.
Date: Friday 1 December 2023, 5:30pm
Venue: Sir Joseph Hotung Auditorium
Booking: click here