Workshop

Toward A Queer History of Housing Activism in NYC

Thu, Oct 10, 2024

6:00 PM–7:30 PM

Virtual Workshop via Zoom.
Please register below to attend.

Register

Join archivist and public historian Maggie Schreiner for a virtual workshop on the queer history of housing activism in NYC.

Learn about the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries’ STAR House in the early 1970s, campaigns to change the rent regulation system recognize same-sex partners during the early AIDS crisis, and advocacy by ACT UP New York to find housing for HIV+ Haitian migrants detained at Guantánamo Bay in the early 1990s. A slideshow presentation on these topics will incorporate print materials and photographs, oral histories, and archival radio clips. The second component of the workshop will be a counter-mapping exercise: using a digital map, participants will have the opportunity to share their queer and trans housing stories. The third and final component will be a facilitated conversation in which participants will have the option to share their story with the group, and discuss further avenues of research. The workshop will be introduced and moderated by Prithi Kanakamedala, Faculty Coordinator of Public Scholarship Practice Space (PS2).

About the Workshop Leader

Maggie Schreiner is a PhD student in the CUNY GC History program, and a Summer Fellow at the Center for Humanities’ Public Scholarship Practice Space (PS2). Maggie was the lead curator for Interference Archive’s 2015 exhibition We Won’t Move: Tenants Organize in NYC and has developed collaborative history projects with CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, UHAB, Met Council on Housing, and others. Maggie is a long-time organizer with Interference Archive and Librarians and Archivists with Palestine.

This is a free virtual workshop, to attend please register here and we will send you the Zoom info and link, which we will via email the morning of Thu, Oct 10, and again an hour before the workshop starts.

Register

This event is hosted and sponsored by the Public Scholarship Practice Space (PS2) from the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Archival Images

Flyer for demo to save the home of Michael Brown, who faced eviction after his lover (and the lease-holder) died of AIDS, 1986. Tamiment Library, NYU.
Open house and cake sale at STAR House on the Lower East Side, 1971 or 1972. New York Public Library.
ACT UP flyer about a Christmas Eve demonstration at the Varick Street INS detention facility, where two HIV+ Haitian migrants were being held after being transferred from Guantanamo Bay, 1992. New York Public Library.
ACT UP flyer about a demonstration for AIDS housing and health care with Anger Into Direct Action, an organization of homeless people with AIDS, 1989. New York Public Library.
Letter that Michael Brown wrote to his landlord requesting a new lease for his apartment, 1985. New York State Library.
New York Times article after Michael Brown lost his case in court; he was evicted a few months later, 1987. New York Times.

Participants

Maggie Schreiner

Workshop Leader

Prithi Kanakamedala

Moderator
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