HomoClassicisms
Dangerous Liaisons: Classical Antiquity and LGBTQ Movements in Greece, the UK, and the US
Contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) movements actively engage with the past. Through archival selection and historiographical accounts, they construct, interpret, and preserve their collective identities. The proposed project, HomoClassicisms, focuses specifically on the cases of LGBTQ movements in Greece, the UK, and the US. Its research goal is to address, through the use of innovative qualitative methodologies from a Southern epistemological perspective, the position of classical antiquity in LGBTQ historiographies. The project aims to investigate whether the movements might become complicit with racialised narratives of identity formation in their articulation of particular pasts. Embracing a bottom-up approach, the project adopts an intersectional and interdisciplinary perspective to map, understand, and critically analyse longstanding omissions in LGBTQ historiographies. Indeed, this is a timely and urgent undertaking. In light of transnational migration and demographic dynamics currently challenging Western societies, investigating who is included and who is excluded within LGBTQ historiographies becomes a critical project. To achieve these goals, HomoClassicisms will be an international collaboration between the Centre for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and the Department of Classics of the Ohio State University in the US.
Acknowledging historiography as a political practice, HomoClassicisms will bring to the fore the construction of specific racial identifications within the historiographical accounts of social movements allegedly fighting for inclusion, justice, and equal rights. The project will analyse intersectional inequalities in relation to politicised uses of the past in a transnational context (through the Greek, British, and North American examples) and will inform, enrich, and challenge theoretical debates originating from Global North over LGBTQ historiography, providing policy-relevant results.
Modern Greek Program, Department of Classics, Ohio State University, USA
