The Center for American Literary Studies “Unprecedented” webinar series grew out of the online-only days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time that was often referred to as unprecedented. It once again feels as if we are in unprecedented times. Queer and trans lives face renewed political assault, from book bans and anti-trans legislation to the defunding of LGBTQ+ research. Because of these attacks, archival work has never been more urgent. This webinar will explore how queer archives function not just as sites of preservation but as battlegrounds for cultural memory and political resistance. In an era when histories are being silenced and scholarship defunded, we ask: “What does it mean to keep queer stories alive? What forms of knowledge, intimacy, and defiance survive through the archive? And how do we build archives that not only remember the past but imagine more just futures?”

Michael Bronski is professor of the practice in media and activism in studies of women, gender, and sexuality at Harvard University. He has been involved with LGBT politics since 1969 as an activist, organizer, writer, publisher, editor, and independent scholar.

Rachael Dreyer is head of research services and associate librarian at Penn State. She recently curated the exhibition, “Give us also the right to our existence: Collecting and Surfacing Queer Narratives", which is currently on display at Penn State University Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections Library through Wednesday, September 17.

Kate Ozment is associate professor of English at Cal Poly Pomona where she teaches Anglo-American book cultures, women’s writing, and digital humanities. She is also co-editor of the Women in Book History Bibliography and contributes to the Women’s Print History Project.

Moderated by Claire Bourne, associate professor of English at the Penn State.