Celebrate Purple Friday at the VU Library with a movie screening of Paris Is Burning, the 1990 documentary that captures the African American and Latinx ballroom scene in New York City. With an introduction by Roel van den Oever, assistant… Continue Reading
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is probably best-known for Marilyn Monroe’s performance of the song “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Later, Madonna wore a similar pink dress in the “Material Girl” video, and Nicole Kidman reprised the song in Moulin Rouge.… Continue Reading
Many queer people have a story to tell about a cultural text (a novel, a film, a television show) that helped them come to terms with their queer identity. For example, a generation of gay men shaped their sense of… Continue Reading
Set in rural Yorkshire, the film God’s Own Country (directed by Francis Lee, 2017) portrays a gay romance between local twenty-something Johnny and Romanian migrant worker Gheorghe. With Gheorghe’s help, Johnny learns to open up emotionally, appreciate the countryside, be… Continue Reading
Commentators claim that masculinity is currently in crisis, by which they actually mean the masculinity of the young. Gender historian Ulrike Brunotte has ironically countered this claim with the maxim that “masculinity is always in crisis.” This adage can be… Continue Reading
Since the appearance of her early-career bestseller Gender Trouble in 1990, American philosopher Judith Butler is one of the most influential thinkers in academia. Her work addresses numerous socially pertinent topics such as gender normativity, political speech, media representations of… Continue Reading