Contents
Phil Zwickler Memorial Grant Winners
The year reflects the spring we made the award. Fellows have until spring of the following year to visit and use the award. We make extensions when needed.
2019
- J. Seth Anderson, Ph.D. Candidate, History Department, Boston University.
The Persistence of Conversion Therapy: Progressive Era Origins and the Creation of Ideal Citizens, 1900-2015.
- Salonee Bhaman, Ph.D. Candidate, History Department, Yale University.
The Borders of Care: Immigration, Welfare, and Intimacy in the Era of AIDS.
- John A. Carranza, Ph.D. Candidate, History Department, University of Texas at Austin.
Explaining Sex: Sex Education, Normalization, and Disability in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s.
- Laurie Marhoefer, Associate Professor of History, University of Washington.
Gay: A New History from the AIDS Crisis to Civil Partnerships.
- Cyle Metzger, Ph.D. Candidate, Art and Art History Department, Program in Feminist,Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Stanford University.
Deep Cuts: Art and Transgender History in the United States.
2018
- Farah Art Griffin , Visual artist.
Bleeding for Equality. Textile art highlighting the importance of hate crimes against LGBTQ people in shaping the history of sexuality.
- Desirae Embree, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of English, Texas A&M University.
Private Pleasures, Public Provocations: Dyke Pornography in the Late 20th Century.
- Elizabeth Groeneveld , Assistant Professor Department of Women’s Studies,Old Dominion University.
On Our Backs: A History of Sex-Positivity.
- Alexis Bard Johnson , PhD Candidate, Art History, Stanford University.
Turning the Page: Image and Identity in U.S. Lesbian Magazines.
- Kel R. Karpinski , CUNY Graduate Center Masters Student in MA in Liberal Studies, Individualized Study Track combining Cultural Studies, Queer Studies and American Studies.
Sailors: The Iconography of an all-American Homoerotic Symbol.
- Gema Pérez-Sánchez , Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Miami.
Pornography and Political Activism in Eduardo Mendicutti’s novel California (2005): Transnational Dimensions of Gay Male Culture and Activism in the 1970s and 1980s.
- William Schultz , Postdoctoral fellow, Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, University of Pennsylvania.
Garden of the Gods: Colorado Springs and the Varieties of American Evangelicalism
- Jamie Wagman , Associate Professor of History and Gender & Women’s Studies, Saint Mary’s College.
The Condom’s Symbolic Meaning in American Visual Culture since World War II.
2017
- Chris Babits , Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin.
To Cure a Sinful Nation: Conversion Therapy and the Making of Modern America, 1930 to the Present Day.
- Santiago Joaquin Insausti , Postdoctoral Fellow, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET). Assistant Professor, Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Dictatorship or Liberation? : Queer Hemispheric Networks in the Late Cold War and the Formation of Gay Liberation Fronts.
- Jennifer Dominique Jones , Assistant Professor, Department of Gender and Race Studies and American Studies, University of Alabama.
Fulfilling the Dream?: The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Dilemmas of Coalition Building, 1977–1982.
2016
- Marcia M. Gallo , Associate Professor of History, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“Eight Kinds of Strength”: How the Life and Times of Valerie Taylor Complicate the Narrative of Twentieth Century Lesbian Feminist Activism.
- Natalie Shibley , Ph.D. Candidate, Africana Studies and History, University of Pennsylvania.
Sexual Contagion: The Politics of Sexuality and Public Health in the U.S. Military, 1941-1993.
- Brenann Sutter , Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Rutgers University.
“treating lesbians like they had money was the whole fucking idea”: Sex and the Lesbian Consumer in On Our Backs Magazine.
2015
- Tamara Chaplin, Associate Professor, Modern European History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Desiring Women: Lesbians, Media, and the Struggle for Visibility in Postwar France.”
- Javier Fernandez Galeano, Ph.D. student, Brown University. “Transnational Histories of Activism: Exchanges and Solidarity between Activists for Sexual Liberation in Argentina, the United States, and Spain.”
- Elisabeth George, Graduate student, SUNY Buffalo. “Queer Life in the Queen City and Beyond: Resistance, Space, and Community Mobilization in the Southwest Missouri Ozarks, 1945-2003.”
- James Kirchick, Journalist, Yale University ’06. The Tribe: The Secret History of Gay Washington.
- Amanda Littauer, Assistant Professor, Department of History and Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. “Queer Youth in the Mid-Twentieth Century.”
- J. Todd Ormsbee, Associate Professor of American Studies, San Jose State University. “‘Your Asshole is Political’: Queercore and the Musical (Re)Making of Gay Community & Politics.”
- Sarah Prager, LGBTQ activist, Boston University ‘08. “Quist: The LGBTQ History App. ”
- Caroline E. Radesky, Ph.D. student, Department of History, Iowa University. “Feeling Historical: Same-Sex Desire and the Politics of History.”
2014
- Austin Bunn , Assistant Professor, Performing and Media Arts, Cornell University. “In the Hollow.”
- T. Jackie Cuevas , Assistant Professor, English, University of Texas at San Antonio. “Trans-ing the Borderlands: Genderqueerness and the Limits of Latinidad.”
- Scott De Orio , Ph.D. Candidate, History and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan. “The Politics of Sex Offenders in the United States since the 1960s.”
- Hallie Lieberman , Ph.D. Candidate, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin – Madison. “Constructing Meaning with Commodities: How Feminists Shaped the Sexual Device Industry in America, 1970-1995.”
- Zein Murib , Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science, University of Minnesota. “Brokering Identity: Examining the Influence of Interest Group Coalitions on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Civic Membership.”
- Joseph M. Ortiz , Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Texas at El Paso. “Gordon Merrick and the Great American Gay Novel.”
- Marie Pecorari , Associate Professor, Paris – Sorbonne Université. “Untouchables: AIDS Bodies and the American Way of Death (1975-2000).”
- Helis Sikk , Ph.D. Candidate, American Studies, The College of William and Mary. “The State of Hate: Affective Economies of Anti-LGBTQ Violence beyond New York City.”
- Emily Skidmore , Assistant Professor of History, Texas Tech University. “Exceptional Queerness: Female-Bodied Men and Community at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.”
- Stephen Vider , Clay Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Sexuality, Department of History, Yale University. “No Place like Home: A Cultural History of Gay Domesticity, 1948-1993.”
2013
- Julie R. Enszer, PhD Candidate, Women’s Studies, University of Maryland. The Whole Naked Truth of Our Lives: Lesbian Print Culture in the United States from 1969 until 1989.
- Marie-Amelie George, PhD candidate, History, Yale. Deviant Justice: Gay Rights and Mental Health in Twentieth-Century America.
- Carol Lautier, PhD Candidate, American Studies, George Washington University. Faith’s Queer Pleasures: Race, Faith and Sexuality in Late 20th Century American Religious Identity.
- Devin McGeehan Muchmore, PhD candidate, American Studies, Yale. The Pleasure Economy: Erotic Entrepreneurs and American Liberalism, 1960-1980.
- Dan Royles, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Temple University. Don’t We Die Too?: the Political Culture of African American AIDS Activism.
2012
- Jaime Cantrell, Ph.D. candidate, English, Louisiana State University. Rethinking Canonicity, Queerly: Sexuality and Sociality in Southern Literary Productions.
- Leigh Goldstein, PhD Candidate, Northwestern University Broadcasting Sex Ed: Sexual Counseling on American Television, 1958-1964. (Using Joyce Brothers papers) John Ibson, Professor of American Studies, California State University, Fullerton “The Mourning After: Putting Space between Males in 1950s America”
2011
- Alyssa Ann Samek, Graduate student in Communication, University of Maryland. “Crafting Queer Identity and Envisioning Liberation at the Intersections: A Rhetorical Analysis of 1970s Lesbian-Feminist Public Discourse.”
- Scott de Groot, Graduate student in History, Queen’s University, Canada. “Out of the Closet and into Print: Gay Liberation and the Politics of Knowledge.”
- David K. Johnson, Associate Professor of History, University of South Florida. “Buying Gay: Consumer Culture and Identity Formation before Stonewall.”
2010
- Brian Distelberg, Graduate student in History, Yale University. “Minority Activists, the Mass Media, and the Politics of Anti-Defamation, 1940s-1990s.”
- Sean F. Edgecomb, Lecturer of Drama, Tufts University. “‘Christopher Street After Dark’: Gay Theatre Culture in Print, 1970-1980.”
- Christina B. Hanhardt, Assistant Professor of American Studies, LGBT Studies, Women’s Studies, University of Maryland, College Park. “‘Safe Space’: The Sexual and City Politics of Violence.”
- Abram J. Lewis, Graduate student in American Studies, University of Minnesota. “‘A Certain Acceptable Way of Life:’ Locating Gender Minority Politics in Post-Stonewall LGBT Activist History.”
- Tim Retzloff, Graduate student in History, Yale University. “Suburb, City, and the Changing Bounds of Lesbian and Gay Life in Metropolitan Detroit, 1945-1985.”
- Nathan Andrew Wilson, Graduate student in History, York University, Canada. “Hitler, Homosexuality, and the Holocaust —The Politics of Memory in West Germany and the United States.”
2009
- Lauren J. Gutterman, Graduate student in History, New York University. “Stranger on Lesbos: Valerie Taylor and the Lesbian Wife in Cold War America.”
- Whitney Strub, Assistant Professor, Women’s Studies/American Studies Programs, Temple University. “Obscenity, Heteronormativity, and Queer Resistance.”
Human Sexuality Collection Research Support Grant.
- Elizabeth O’Gorek, Graduate student, York University. “Masculine Identities in American Print Pornography, 1945-1984: From Playboy to the V.C.R.”
2008
- Amy L. Stone, Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX. “The Institutionalization of LGBT Ballot Campaign Strategies.”
- David B. Green, Jr., Graduate Student, University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Queering Civil Rights, Coloring Stonewall: A History of Queer Interracial Organizing, 1963-1980.”
2007
- Stefanie Snider, doctoral student in Art History, University of Southern California, “Imag(in)ing Subcultural Bodies: Fat and Queer Subjects in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture, 1970-Present.”
- Scott Morgensen, Asst. Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Macalester College, to continue his prior research at Cornell on early gay and lesbian activism by women and people of color. “We Are Everywhere: Imagining Collective Organizing in the National Gay Task Force, 1973-1979.”
- Robert Beachy, Associate Professor of History, Goucher College, “Berlin: Gay Metropolis, 1860-1933.”
2006
- Mark Abraham, graduate student in History and Theory of Gender and Sexuality at York University, Toronto, Canada, “Bodies on the Line: Sex and the American Counterculture, 1965-1975.”
- David Johnson, Assistant Professor of History, University of South Florida, “Buying Gay: Gay Mass Consumption and Identity before Stonewall.”
- Mark Meinke, Founder & Principal Researcher, Rainbow History Project. A study of H. Lynn Womack’s relationship with the Mattachine Society of Washington and possible links between the Gay Liberation Fronts in Washington, DC and New York City.
2005
- Tim Retzloff, undergraduate student at University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, “‘It Was Just Unheard Of’: Suburbanization and the Shaping of Gay and Lesbian Community in Metro Detroit.”
- Gill Frank, graduate student in American Civilization at Brown University, “‘Save the Children’: The Sexual Politics of Child Protection in the United States, 1969-1989.”
- Prof. Chet Meeks, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northern Illinois University, “‘Normal Gay Citizen’: GLAAD, Positive Visibility, and the Transformation of American Sexual Culture.”
2004
- Heather Murray, graduate student University of Massachusetts-Amherst, “Family Life in the Suburbs of Human Contempt: Gay Lives Within and Beyond the Family, 1950s-90s.”
- Richard M. Juang, Asst. Prof. Department of English, Susquehanna University, “Transgender Recognition.”
- Scott Morgensen, Asst. Prof. in LGBT Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies Dept. Macalester College, “Imagining the Indigenous in Queer Politics.”
- Danielle M. DeMuth, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at Hamilton College, “Lesbian Literary History and the Limits of Reading Literature as History, We Don’t Read the Literature Anymore.”
2003
- Christina B. Hanhardt, New York University American Studies graduate student. “‘Safe Space’: Sexual Minorities, Uneven Development, and the Politics of Anti-Violence.”
- Richard Meyer, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Southern California. “Secret Histories at Art.”
- Anne Enke, Asst. Prof. of History and Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin Madison. “Sexuality and Black Cultural Politics in Detroit, 1950-1980.”
2002
- William B. Turner, Assistant Professor of History at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, “The New Civil Rights: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Politics and Policy in the United States, 1975-2000.”
- Leisa D. Meyer, Associate Professor of History at The College of William & Mary, for her proposal “Sexuality in America: A History Since World War II.”
- Dermot Feenan, a visiting researcher from the University of Ulster Law School in Northern Ireland, “Gay and Lesbian Activism: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Challenges to Discrimination on the Grounds of Sexual Orientation.”
2004 Zwickler Memorial Research Grants
In 2004, the Zwickler Grant Committee made awards to four individuals:
- Heather Murray, graduate student University of Massachusetts-Amherst, “Family Life in the Suburbs of Human Contempt: Gay Lives Within and Beyond the Family, 1950s-90s.” This project makes use of the records of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), various personal papers in Cornell’s collection, and rare print items. The relationship between gay people and their families has not been adequately explored and deserves the complex and thoughtful analysis Ms. Murray brings to the subject.
- Richard M. Juang, Asst. Prof. Department of English, Susquehanna University, “Transgender Recognition.” Prof. Juang spent a month in Ithaca in the summer of 2004 doing research for a book that will trace the struggle of transgender persons to achieve political and cultural equality in the United States.
- Scott Morgensen, Asst. Prof. in LGBT Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies Dept. Macalester College, “Imagining the Indigenous in Queer Politics.” Prof. Morgensen is making use of the records of a variety of significant lesbian and gay organizations to research the extent that historically white LGBT organizations have incorporated anti-racist or anti-colonial agendas. His research on the connections between political movements should be valuable. His work will be available in his forthcoming book Metropolitan Desires: Imagining the Indigenous in Queer Politics.
- Danielle M. DeMuth, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at Hamilton College, will use sources in the Human Sexuality Collection for her research project, “Lesbian Literary History and the Limits of Reading Literature as History, We Don’t Read the Literature Anymore.”
The ultimate purpose of the Human Sexuality Collection is to have some impact on what people are able to know and think about human sexuality by encouraging research use of the materials we acquire and preserve.
2003 Zwickler Memorial Research Grants
September 8, 2003
Cornell Library Awards Research Grants for Human Sexuality Projects
Ithaca, NY
Cornell University Library has announced the winners of its second Phil Zwickler Memorial Research Grants. Made possible by support from the Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Foundation, the grants provide financial assistance to scholars when they come to Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC) to conduct research on sexuality.
Zwickler, a filmmaker and journalist who devoted his talents to communicating ideas about lesbian and gay rights and the AIDS crisis, died in 1991 at age 36. Cornell preserves documentation of his life and work as part of its Human Sexuality Collection, a program established to encourage the study of sexuality and sexual politics by preserving and making accessible important primary sources that document historical shifts in the social construction of sexuality.
“While the arrival of new research materials is exciting to me as a curator, it really all seems worthwhile only when researchers come and use them,” said Brenda Marston, curator of the library’s Human Sexuality Collection. Students and faculty at Cornell use the collections extensively, and Marston adds “this grant funding provides a tremendous boost in making these materials accessible to the wider research community.”
This year, the Zwickler funding, supplemented generously by Prof. Martha Fineman’s Dorothea S. Clarke Fund, sponsored three scholars: New York University American Studies graduate student, Christina B. Hanhardt; University of Southern California’s Art History Associate Professor Richard Meyer; and University of Wisconsin – Madison Assistant Professor of History and Women’s Studies Anne Enke.
Christina B. Hanhardt’s project “‘Safe Space’: Sexual Minorities, Uneven Development, and the Politics of Anti-Violence” is innovative, cross-disciplinary study that tackles a real-world problem – hatred and violence. Her research places the real need of sexual minorities for protection from violent attack within the larger frame of urban political economy. She will trace changes from the 1970s through the 90s in anti-violence organizing in San Francisco and New York and show that different communities have different perceptions of the sources of danger and of appropriate solutions. Her research will have important implications for public policy. In addition to producing a dissertation that likely will be published, Ms. Hanhardt works on a radio collective and plans to produce a radio series based on her research. She also plans to bring her work to policy makers.
She received a grant of $1,225 and plans to spend three weeks at Cornell in January 2004 consulting a variety of collections documenting lesbian and gay activism, a subject which is one of the Library’s strengths. She will also speak while on campus as part of the LBG Studies colloquia series.
Professor Richard Meyer’s project, “Secret Histories at Art,” makes use of Cornell Library’s early physique and bodybuilding photographs and periodicals, as well as several of our manuscript collections. Prof. Meyer is interested in the ways that “For sexual minorities in particular, visual images have often functioned less as a reflection of reality than as an alternative to it….” His award of $1350 supported a research trip here in July 2003.
Prof. Anne Enke is working to add Black women’s voices to the telling of lesbian history during the period from the 1950s to 1980s. She is looking at leisure spaces, such as softball fields and coffeehouses, for indications of the formation of community and alternative culture. Her research in Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis is shedding light on 3 questions: “…the production of white privilege among feminists…; the significance of sexuality in efforts to resist segregation and racism; and the ways that activist networks constructed sexual subcultures and feminism through considerable cultural exchange across race, class, political ideology, and region.” Prof. Enke wrote, “Since the 1960s, historians of sexuality have asserted that sexuality is socially constructed. But one of the most pressing questions remains: just how and by what processes is sexuality constructed?” Her work will address this fundamental question.
Key to her research was access to Roey Thorpe’s oral history project with African-American and white lesbians in Detroit held in Cornell’s Human Sexuality Collection. Since this important collection was small in size and relatively easy to transport safely, RMC decided to make the collection available to her through a loan to the University of Wisconsin Library, and awarded her $125 to help with photocopying expenses.
The grant committee, composed of Fineman, Marston, and Amy Villarejo, Associate Professor, Theatre, Film & Dance and Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, was pleased to be able to support the diverse and significant work of these three scholars.
For more information about Cornell Library’s Human Sexuality Collection, or next year’s Zwickler Memorial Research Grants, contact Brenda Marston at bjm4@cornell.edu, or (607) 255-3530.
2002 Zwickler Memorial Research Grants
May 22, 2002
Cornell Library Awards Research Grants for Human Sexuality Projects
Ithaca, NY
Cornell University Library has announced the winners of its first Phil Zwickler Memorial Research Grants. Made possible by support from the Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Foundation, the grants provide financial assistance to scholars for expenses incurred when they come to Cornell to conduct research on sexuality with sources in the library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC).
Zwickler, a filmmaker and journalist who devoted his talents to communicating ideas about lesbian and gay rights and the AIDS crisis, died in 1991 at age 36. Documentation of his life and work are preserved in Cornell’s Human Sexuality Collection, which seeks to encourage the study of sexuality and sexual politics by preserving and making accessible relevant primary sources that document historical shifts in the social construction of sexuality.
“The quality and number of applications for these first grants is a testament both to the vitality of this burgeoning field of research and the need for funding of this sort,” said Brenda Marston, curator of the library’s Human Sexuality Collection.
The proposals from Leisa D. Meyer and William B. Turner stood out because they were from accomplished scholars who already had book contracts for major studies of sexuality. Both also planned extensive research visits to Cornell to use the library’s Human Sexuality Collection.
However, funds were not available to fully support both scholars until Martha Fineman, the Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Feminist Jurisprudence and director of the Gender, Sexuality and Family Project, decided to finance one of the projects from the Dorothea S. Clarke Fund. The $1,300 Clarke grant was awarded to Leisa D. Meyer, associate professor of history at The College of William & Mary, for her proposal “Sexuality in America: A History Since World War II.” Meyer is a noted scholar and the committee anticipates that her forthcoming book will be used widely in college classes.
William B. Turner, assistant professor of history at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, received a $1,300 Zwickler grant for his study titled “The New Civil Rights: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Politics and Policy in the United States, 1975-2000.” Turner’s research will focus on how policy is made and how citizens and social movements shape policy.
A second Zwickler grant, in the amount of $200, was awarded to Dermot Feenan, a visiting researcher from the University of Ulster Law School in Northern Ireland who requested a small grant for his project titled, “Gay and Lesbian Activism: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Challenges to Discrimination on the Grounds of Sexual Orientation.” Feenan has been involved extensively with Northern Ireland’s Bill of Rights project in regard to rights on the basis of sexual orientation.
The grant committee, composed of Fineman, Marston, and Amy Villarejo, assistant professor, Theatre, Film & Dance and Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, invited Meyer and Turner to return to Cornell for a day-long symposium, scheduled for Sept. 28, 2002, to present their work. The scholars will also meet with graduate students to talk about doing research with the Human Sexuality Collection and with primary sources in general.
For more information about Cornell Library’s Human Sexuality Collection, or next year’s Zwickler Memorial Research Grants, contact Brenda Marston at bjm4@cornell.edu, or (607) 255-3530.