Keep on carryin' on: Recent research on the LGBTQ history of the American South

Abstract

AbstractTwenty years have elapsed since the publication of Carryin' On in the Lesbian and Gay South, edited by historian John Howard. The essays in that collection challenged the bicoastal and metro‐normative bias of American gay and lesbian history. Since then, scholars, activists, and local community members have continued to refine our understanding of the regionally specific ways—the four R's of race, religion, rurality, and resilience—through which sex and sexuality are understood and embodied in the American South. Oral history, constantly improving technology, and greater connectivity through the Internet are facilitating conversations across disciplines and beyond the University. Whereas early Southern gay and lesbian scholarship suffered from a long tradition of queer exclusion from the archive and a devaluing of queer lives, the variety of hybrid community and university LGBTIQ+ documentation projects across the south evidence a sea change. Far from perfect, the field of Southern lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer history is becoming ever more diverse and inclusive.