Professor discusses queer history during Pride Month gathering
Professor Whites said opinions are
Published April 7, 2006
During the third Pride Month event, history professor Leeann Whites lectured Thursday night about Queer American History.
Roughly 50 people attended the lecture in Ellis Auditorium at Ellis Library.
"People rarely have the opportunity to hear this," said Meagan Young, undergraduate supervisor for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center, which presents Pride Month. "It's a history that's really been silenced."
Patrick Buckalew — co-president of Mizzou Students for Gay and Lesbian Equality, which sponsored the lecture — said most students don't learn about the history of homosexuality unless they search for it on their own.
"This is not something that is taught in high schools unless you take the right classes," he said.
The evening began with a preview of the "Queer Monologues," which will be performed in its entirety later this month.
The short segment was an overview of the history of homosexuality in America, which also was the topic of the lecture.
Whites focused more on people's perception of history than on history itself. She said when she asks students why history matters, their most common response is so people do not repeat mistakes. She said history professors don't like that answer because they know history doesn't repeat itself.
She said people are being used by history instead of using it themselves.
"We are oriented by history as we move through the world," she said.
She said views are directed by what people know of their history and what is ingrained in them as children.
She said many times rather than remembering our history, we start by dismembering it and then reconstructing it, or forgetting things then putting a different face on them.
She said her uncle, whom she thought simply went into the merchant marines, never returned home after he joined.
Instead, she said, he used the merchant marines to flee his home because of his homosexuality.
Freshman Heather Hayden said she enjoyed the event.
"She was a really good lecturer," Hayden said. "And the monologue was fun."
Freshman Jessica Lucas said she was surprised by the lecture.
"It was a good lecture, but not what I was expecting," said freshman Jessica Lucas. "I was expecting more of an overview of American history. I think this was relevant to a lot of people here but not as much to me."
