Over 40 years ago, in 1981, a group of us based at the University of Essex published the book, The Making of the Modern Homosexual. And very recently, one of the contributors – Gregg Blachford – has written a very lively reflection on this book, and his own engagement, in his wonderful new blog: A…
Today, I have updated my publications and articles section. See All Publications 1973-2022. The opening listing now provides a coverage from 1973, my first published article, to 2022, where several forthcoming publications and listed. There are around 170 publications in all, listed by type and date. This is more or less complete. Beyond this All…
15th ANNIVERSARY OF TRANSPLANT Each year around 18-19th February I take note, even celebrate, the time of my liver transplant in 2007. I take time to think what it meant: then – and now. To maybe write a few reflections (often put on this web site). To send a few thank you cards and refresh a few…
White. A-blank-page-or-canvas. So-many-possibilities. Sunday in the Park with George I have long been fascinated with Sondheim’s lyrics, writings, and musicals. They help bring alive an inspiring sense of a deeply human relational, moving, and contingent world stuffed full of everyday precariousness and ambiguity. Here we can sense negotiated social structures formed through fragile human beings…
A New Year. A New Dawn. A Sunrise in Wivenhoe.
It has become a cliché that Sondheim was a powerhouse of change for the contemporary musical in the last half of the twentieth century. He remade it anew, brought fresh possibilities, gave it a new prominence – and, not least, he gave it a wider credibility as an art form. There were many earlier people…
We live in a Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic. But we would be very foolish not to forget that it is just over 40 years since the world confronted AIDS and HIV. And we have had to live with it ever since. Looking back, those who were there find it hard to believe now how…
Stephen Sondheim died on Friday November 26th, aged 91. A musical Giant for our times. The shaper of the modern musical. My guru. He has been with me as inspiration and muse these last fifty years and it is a sad day. I hope to write some reflections on him before too long. (For the…
PIONEERING SOCIAL RESEARCH has just received a lovely review in the journal Oral History from the eminent sociologist Michael Savage. Take a look at https://www.ohs.org.uk/reviews/pioneering-social-research-life-stories-of-a-generation/
I have recently been involved in a new edited collection of personal stories by gay men. The Everyday Lives of Gay Men draws on the expertise of 12 contributors from different countries and fields, writing from an auto-ethnographic first-person approach. Putting the power of personal stories at the centre of the construction of sophisticated narratives of gay…