The Raphael Samuel Memorial Lecture 2009 – Making the Human Gesture: History, Sexuality and Social Justice

Bishopsgate Institute, 27 November 2009, 6,30pm

Free, no advance booking required
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The 1970s saw the rise of new social movements engaged with issues of sexuality. Historians inspired by these movements began writing histories of sexual life. This talk traces the development of these histories since the 1970s and considers what they show us about changing attitudes to human rights and social justice in western society. Speaker Jeffrey Weeks will discuss the importance of sexual history to contemporary thought and ask what a history rooted in the sexual radicalism of the late 20th century can teach us about life in the 21st.
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Jeffrey Weeks is a leading historian and sociologist of sexuality. His 1977 book Coming Out was hugely influential, and he has since published many other landmark works, including Sexuality and Its Discontents, Making Sexual History and The World We Have Won: the Remaking of Erotic and Intimate Life. Jeffrey Weeks is now Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University.