During the annual meeting, we come together to learn from each other, but also from the cities and regions in which we meet. In January, New Orleans will be more than a backdrop for our sessions. We encourage attendees to explore the local communities, and we have organized several tours to facilitate a greater understanding of the city and its history. But we also strive to be responsible participants in the civic culture and discourse of the cities and regions in which we meet. Much of this aspect of annual meeting planning happens behind the scenes, through our outstanding Local Arrangements Committee, but the annual meeting also includes a number of sessions by local historians and on local and regional history.

Over the next months on this blog, we will highlight sessions and events focused on New Orleans and the South. This week, midway through LGBT history month, we focus on a multisession workshop  organized by the Committee on LGBT History, an affiliate of the AHA.

Multisession Workshop: Queer Souths
Organized by Don Romesburg, Sonoma State University, and the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History

Queer Southern Destinations: Tourism, Community, Policing, and Belonging

Chair: Karen Cox, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Commentator: Karen Cox, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Papers:
Queer Circulation and Communities in an Age of Moral Panic: Midcentury Tourism and Cruising on the Florida Panhandle
Jerry Watkins, King’s College London

Gentrifying Gender: Geographies of Sex in the French Quarter, 1950–65
M. Melinda Chateauvert, University of Maryland at College Park

Stand by Me: The Unknown Story of the Gay Church Burning in New Orleans
James T. Downs, Connecticut College

“Montrose Is Not Just a Zip Code, It’s an Attitude”: Why the Inner City Neighborhood Became Houston’s Gay Area
John Goins, University of Houston

Locating Southern Lesbian Feminist Political History

Chair and Commentator: Alecia P. Long, Louisiana State University
Papers:
Lesbian Hospitality: Southern Feminist Networks and New Left Consciousness, 1972–95
Pamela C. Edwards, Shepherd University

Death of the Southern Lady: Lesbian and Feminist Activism in the Conservative South, 1972–86
Rebecca Smith, University of Houston

Lesbians and the Politics of Southern Gay Pride
La Shonda Mims, University of Georgia

The Queer U.S. South and Southward: A Comparative Roundtable on Histories of LGBT Activism

Chair: Jennifer Brier, University of Illinois at Chicago
Topics:
Police Persecution, Liberation, and Human Rights: Modern Homosexual Identity and the Transformations of Sexual Politics in Buenos Aires, 1950–2010
Pablo E. Ben, San Diego State University

A Queer Southern Sanctuary: LGBTQ and Hispanic Migrations and Activism in Atlanta, 1970–2011
Wesley Chenault, Virginia Commonwealth University

“There’s Hope for Homosexuals!” Gay Visibility, the Religious Right, and the Advent of AIDS in Brazil
Benjamin Arthur Cowan, Dalhousie University

We’re Here, We’re Queer, We Will Not Live in Fear: Fred Paez, Paul Broussard, and the Role of Violence in Gay Houston
Chris Haight, University of Houston

New Directions in LGBT Southern History
Pippa Holloway, Middle Tennessee State University

Mary Amelia’s World: Queer Sexuality in the Alabama Black Belt, 1730–2005

Chair: Leisa D. Meyer, College of William and Mary
Commentator: Grey Gundaker, College of William and Mary
Papers:
Dead and Living Connections: The Evolution of Sexuality in the Alabama Black Belt, 1730–1916
Charles Allen Wallace, College of William and Mary

Mary Amelia Leavelle’s Photographs: Presentations of Self and Sexuality in the Twentieth Century South
Laurel Daen, College of William and Mary

Buried in the Black Belt: A Biographical Sketch of a Lesbian in the New South
Mollie Beth Wallace, University of Alabama

Tales from the Queer South: Desire, Identity, and Community

 

Chair: John Howard, King’s College London
Commentator: Colin R. Johnson, Indiana University Bloomington
Papers:
Willie Ray’s Queer Mississippi: Gender Deviance in Rural Prentiss County at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Emily E. Skidmore, Texas Tech University

Gay and Lesbian New Orleans: Urban Homosexuality in the American South
Richard Clark, U.S. Air Force

Conflict in the Country: Lesbian Feminism, Race, and Southernness
Katherine Schweighofer, Indiana University Bloomington

This post first appeared on AHA Today.