Submitted by Heather Stallard on Wed, 26/09/2018 - 17:42
Kevin Jennings has a quarter-century of experience is popularizing LGBT history. In 1994 he co-founded the US LGBT History Month (now observed every October) and also authored *Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay & Lesbian History for High School and College Students*, the first book of its kind. He then helped write and produce *Out of the Past*, the first documentary on LGBT History designed for classroom use, which won the 1997 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary. Most recently he has been an Executive Producer of The Lavender Scare, a documentary on the McCarthy-era witch hunts for LGBT federal employees in the US. Kevin is the founder of GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) and a former Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration. Jennings is now the President of the Tenement Museum, America's foremost museum dedicated to telling the stories of immigrants to the US.
At his talk in January 2018 Kevin Jennings asked the question "What's the use of queer studies?" We hope to continue answering this question as our programme develops, and have started a series in response called "Queer(y)ing the Curriculum", in which researchers discuss why - and whether - queer studies is important.
