Finding Queer Stories in Archives - Seminar Series 2021 Broken Futures

Introducing our final podcast of the Broken Futures 2021 Seminar Series which features a podcast recorded and produced in association with the British Association for Local History, with Dr Claire Keenan for their current podcast series: Local History Matters. Joined by Tim Allsop, project leader of the Queer Rural Connections project, and George and Amy, the Broken Futures team discuss why queer local history matters and the work of their current projects to diversify the historical records and narratives that are researched.



Links: If you'd like to visit the Local History Matters podcast series please visit: www.balh.org.uk/podcast

To read more about the Queer Rural Connections project please see here: Queer Rural Connections | TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

To get tickets for their shows: THE STARS ARE BRIGHTER HERE - The MERL (reading.ac.uk)

In this episode, the team talk to Prof Katherine Harloe, Professor of Classics and Intellectual History at the University of Reading, about her interests in queer classics, how classics was used to conceptualise and same-sex desire in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, her role in bringing about the Broken Futures project, and the research and recording of diverse narratives.

In this episode, the Broken Futures team talk to Mark Stevens, the Berkshire County Archivist about the Broken Futures project and how it links to the records Mark holds within the Berkshire Record Office. We talk about document conservation, access to the records, the importance of state archives in documenting queer history, Reading's new Banksy on the walls of Reading Gaol, as well as the pardoning of historical men who had sex with men. 



About Mark: Mark is County Archivist for Berkshire and works at the Berkshire Record Office in Reading where, amongst other things, he looks after the archives of various Berkshire criminal courts and those of Reading jail. Mark also writes about Victorian mental health and has published two books: 'Broadmoor Revealed' and 'Life in the Victorian Asylum'.

For more information on the Berkshire Record Office, visit www.berkshirerecordoffice.org.uk

To view the Berkshire Record Office's Catalogue of Records: Berkshire Record Office Collections (berkshirenclosure.org.uk)

The BRO is contactable on 0118 937 5132

In this episode, the team speak to Dr Emily Rutherford (Junior Research Fellow in History at Merton College, University of Oxford) about: her interest in queer history; how men who experienced same-sex desire would have conceptualised this in Victorian and Edwardian England; the differences between elite and working-class conceptions of homosexuality, including how different sources can form our understandings of both; and her upcoming work. Follow Dr Rutherford on twitter @echomikeromeo and visit her website www.emilymrutherford.com

In this episode, the team talk to Dr Oliver Baldwin from the University of Reading's Department of Classics about: his interest in queer history; his current project Queer Tragedy; why classics is so queer; how the men in the Broken Futures project may have used their understandings of the ancient world to understand their same-sex desire; and the relevance of Oscar Wilde's famous use of 'the love that dare not speak it's name' to legitimise his relationships with other men.
This is a really accessible podcast that introduces queer classics for a first-time listener.

In this episode, we speak to Prof Aleardo Zanghellini from the University of Reading's School of Law. Aleardo tells us about: how law and legal theory interacts with queer heritage; how the law operated against men who had sex with men; his novel Spellbinders, a work of historical fiction centring on Edward II's same-sex desire; how more diverse queer stories, including those of women and trans people, can be found in criminal archives; and his latest work on how same-sex desire played a part in the government of Fiume.