LGBTQ+ Archives - Public Seminar

Music

Hold Onto This

Why young queer artists and music lovers are turning again to physical media like zines and tapes

March 25, 2026 • by Eva Szilardi-Tierney

For Rox Eckroth and August Simon, the idea of putting together a tape compilation of songs from trans artists came as much from their interest in the history of cassettes as it did from a desire to collate trans art. “You put a tape in the machine, you hit play. It ...

Interviews

The Return of the Oppressed

A conversation with Robert Fieseler on American Scare and the recovery of queer history long obscured by state censorship

March 11, 2026 • by Robert W. Fieseler and Katelyn Kimberlin

“I kept wondering why it felt like we were all living in the United States of Florida,” says Robert W. Fieseler. In his new book, American Scare: Florida's Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives (Penguin Random House, 2025), Fieseler examines the forces shaping the fastest-growing state in the ...

Sex & Gender

A League of Their Own

From Rio’s local pitches to the Gay Games, queer athletes challenge the presumed heterosexuality of Brazil’s national sport

February 18, 2026 • by C. K. Snyder

One of the teams that created the LiGay [the amateur Brazilian “Gay League”] was the BeesCats Soccer Boys from Rio de Janeiro. Organizers formed the team in 2017 with a triple aim: to demonstrate that gay men are indeed futebolistas, to help players overcome personal trauma, and to assert their ...

Reviews

Untranslating Lemebel

A Last Supper of Queer Apostles refuses to domesticate the Chilean author’s queer vernacular

February 18, 2026 • by Mariana Giacobbe Goldberg

The cover of A Last Supper of Queer Apostles (Penguin Classics, 2024) features a collage centered around an edited photograph of a man dressed as a saint, crowned with a halo of syringes, each one filled with a watery red substance that looks like blood. This punk Virgin Mary impersonator ...

Literature

Brick by Brick: Richard Siken Rebuilds His Interior World

In I Do Know Some Things, the poet proposes an “encyclopedia of self”

February 13, 2026 • by Rayna Salam

“Who you are and who you think you are: They grind against each other, sand in the frosting,” poet and painter Richard Siken writes in his long-awaited third collection. I Do Know Some Things (Copper Canyon Press, 2025) continues his previous exploration of selfhood, but with a harrowing purpose. In ...

Brick by Brick: Richard Siken Rebuilds His Interior World

Europe & Central Asia

The Gospel According to Queer Russians

Sergey Khazov-Cassia’s newly translated novel reimagines Christ’s story as a parable of queer suffering and resistance in Putin’s Russia

October 22, 2025 • by Katherine Kelaidis

For more than a decade, Russia—and its client states like Chechnya—have carried out the brutal persecution of sexual and gender minorities, particularly gay men, with tacit approval from the Russian Orthodox Church. This violence is framed as a defense of “traditional family values,” part of a nostalgic vision of Russia ...

Psyche

“Masc Only”

When gender conformity is enforced everywhere from laws to dating apps, opacity becomes a site of resistance

September 30, 2025 • by Yann Phesans

A gay man lowers his voice in the boardroom. A trans woman is detained at border control when her appearance does not match her passport photo. A nonbinary teenager avoids mirrors. A butch lesbian is asked to leave the women’s changing room for “making others uncomfortable.” These are not moments of ...

Music

God Bless Perverts

The new Ethel Cain album is sexually, romantically, spiritually sick

June 4, 2025 • by Mikayla Emerson

Preacher’s Daughter, Hayden Anhedönia’s debut studio album under her alias Ethel Cain, garnered her critical acclaim and a cult following online. Preacher’s Daughter splayed out the narrative of a young woman reckoning with her abusive father’s death, abandoning her Christian community in Alabama, and running away west. As the album ...

Politics

The Left Needs a Better Defense of Trans People

Stop emphasizing population size and start talking policy

April 24, 2025 • by Amelia Nonemacher

In the opening months of the Trump administration, the full power of the state has been deployed to suppress the rights of trans people to access healthcare, play sports, change their gender marker on official documents, and use public bathrooms, among other attacks. These policies have been critiqued by LGBTQ+ ...

The Left Needs a Better Defense of Trans People

Film

Enter the Glow

Hannah Burns explores identity, escapism, and queer belonging in I Saw the TV Glow

October 9, 2024 • by Hannah Burns

Sometimes the only place we can be ourselves is inside the media we consume. Sometimes that is where we see options, where we feel less “other.” Watching I Saw the TV Glow, I loved the thought that Jane Schoenbrun’s amazing new film will join a queer film canon in which a ...

Activism

The New Urgency of LGBTQ+ Pride in Paris

A celebration or a rebellion?

October 7, 2024 • by Marko Vuorinen

"We are transfeminists, radicals, and afroqueers,” marchers shouted. “Get used to it!" Their call echoed through a crowd of 28,000, gathered in the heart of Paris to advocate for the rights of gender and sexual minorities. Summer is Pride season around the world, and Paris is no exception. The main event ...

The New Urgency of LGBTQ+ Pride in Paris

Past Present

Neil J. Young’s Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right

Episode 406

April 4, 2024 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

In Episode 406 of Past Present, Natalia, Niki, and Neil discuss—and celebrate!—Neil’s new book, Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right....

LGBTQ+

Hold Onto This

Why young queer artists and music lovers are turning again to physical media like zines and tapes

The Return of the Oppressed

A conversation with Robert Fieseler on American Scare and the recovery of queer history long obscured by state censorship

A League of Their Own

From Rio’s local pitches to the Gay Games, queer athletes challenge the presumed heterosexuality of Brazil’s national sport

Untranslating Lemebel

A Last Supper of Queer Apostles refuses to domesticate the Chilean author’s queer vernacular

Brick by Brick: Richard Siken Rebuilds His Interior World

In I Do Know Some Things, the poet proposes an “encyclopedia of self”

The Gospel According to Queer Russians

Sergey Khazov-Cassia’s newly translated novel reimagines Christ’s story as a parable of queer suffering and resistance in Putin’s Russia

“Masc Only”

When gender conformity is enforced everywhere from laws to dating apps, opacity becomes a site of resistance

God Bless Perverts

The new Ethel Cain album is sexually, romantically, spiritually sick

The Left Needs a Better Defense of Trans People

Stop emphasizing population size and start talking policy

Enter the Glow

Hannah Burns explores identity, escapism, and queer belonging in I Saw the TV Glow

The New Urgency of LGBTQ+ Pride in Paris

A celebration or a rebellion?

Neil J. Young’s Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right

Episode 406

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