Writing Queer History

Writing Queer History introduces and surveys the ways in which historians and others have researched and written about the lesbian, gay and queer past. It pinpoints some of the key themes, issues and questions they have sought to address, looks at the kinds of sources they have used and suggests ways in which queer theory since the early 1990s has shifted approaches and perspectives for historians. Section One gives an overview of uses and accounts of the queer past from the late 19th century to the present. Section Two explores key questions and themes that have exercised historians by focusing on key texts ranging from the Medieval to the contemporary. Section Three focuses in further on different kinds of source material, examining specific archives to demonstrate how we might understand the past through particular documents, artifacts, voices and images.