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<P class=FreeForm align=left><SPAN style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><B><FONT style="size: 6"><FONT color=#0070c0
face="Times New Roman">Jeffrey Weeks</FONT></FONT></B></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=FreeForm align=center><B><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="COLOR: "><FONT
style="COLOR: #0070c0" size=5 face=Helvetica>Queer History and the Politics of
Sexual Justice</FONT></SPAN></B></P>
<P class=FreeForm align=center><B style="LINE-HEIGHT: 10pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; LINE-HEIGHT: 10pt"><FONT style="COLOR: #0070c0"
size=5 face="Times New Roman">5:30 p.m., Thursday, 20 February 2014,
Auditorium</FONT></SPAN></B></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 6.5pt"></FONT></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=FreeForm align=left><FONT style="size: 4"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face="Times New Roman">T</FONT></SPAN><FONT
face=Helvetica><SPAN style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">his l</SPAN><SPAN
style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">ecture focuses on the idea of sexual justice, which
has been a key theme in LGBT history since the earliest days of the movement.
The German pioneer of homosexual rights at the beginning of the 20</SPAN><SUP
style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">th</SUP><SPAN style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> century,
Magnus Hirschfeld, saw science as the golden road to sexual justice,</SPAN><SPAN
style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </SPAN><SPAN style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">and
this emphasis was immensely influential on the first generation of sexologists
and sex reformers and activists. Its influence can still be seen in attempts to
prove the existence of a gay brain or the gay gene in arguments for homosexual
rights. </SPAN><SPAN style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">From the 1970s, however, with the rise of the new
radical sexual movements, and other forms of sexual agency, a new politics of
sexuality questioned the hegemony of science, and challenged the naturalism and
essentialisms of existing concepts of gender, sexuality, and homosexuality. A
more historical and sociological approach led to a stronger stress on the
meanings of sexual justice, and increasingly a discourse of human sexual rights
has become the vehicle for campaigns for sexual reform, especially LGBT rights
and latterly same sex marriage globally. This is a major change in the politics
of sexual justice, and signals a growing awareness of the importance of human
agency in shaping the ways we live gender and
sexuality.</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=FreeForm align=center><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt"> </FONT></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt">***</FONT></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=FreeForm align=center><SPAN lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt"> </FONT></FONT></SPAN><FONT face=Helvetica><I><SPAN
lang=EN-GB><FONT style="size: 4">Jeffrey Weeks is Emeritus Professor of
Sociology at London South Bank University (LSBU). He was involved in early
gay liberation in London and was an editor of the journal Gay Left throughout
the 1980s. He has written widely on homosexuality and other sexual issues and is
the author of over twenty books, and more than 100 articles and papers. His
books include Coming </FONT></SPAN></I><I><SPAN lang=EN-GB><FONT
style="size: 4">Out (1977), Sexuality and its Discontents (1985), Against
Nature (1991), Invented Moralit</FONT></SPAN></I><I><SPAN lang=EN-GB><FONT
style="size: 4">ies (1995), Making Sexual History (2000), Same Sex
Intimacies (with Brian Heaphy and Catherine Donovan, 2001), The World We
Have Won: The Remaking of Erotic and Intimate Life (2007), Sexuality,
3<SUP>rd</SUP> edition (2009) and The Languages of Sexuality (2011). A new,
fully revised edition of Sex, Politics and Society (originally published in
1981) was published in 2012. He was the recipient of the American Sociological
Association’s Simon and Gagnon Award in 2010 for outstanding contributions to
the study of se</FONT><FONT style="size: 4">xuality.
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