Sex, Time and Place: Queer Histories of London, c.1850 to the Present

Sex, Time and Place extensively widens the scope of what we might mean by 'queer London studies'. Incorporating multidisciplinary perspectives – including social history, cultural geography, visual culture, literary representation, ethnography and social studies – this collection asks new questions, widens debates and opens new subject terrain. Featuring essays from an international range of established scholars and emergent voices, the collection is a timely contribution to this growing field. Its essays cover topics such as activist and radical communities and groups, AIDS and the city, art and literature, digital archives and technology, drag and performativity, lesbian London, notions of bohemianism and deviancy, sex reform and research and queer Black history. Going further than the existing literature on Queer London which focuses principally on the experiences of white gay men in a limited time frame, Sex, Time and Place reflects the current state of this growing and important field of study. It will be of great value to scholars, students and general readers who have an interest in queer history, London studies, cultural geography, visual cultures and literary criticism.

Nagaland: Borders, Boundaries, Belonging: Contested spaces and disputed narratives

In 2011 I travelled to three of the ‘Seven Sister’ states of old Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya & Assam. My journey to this remote and politically sensitive region, bordering Chinese occupied Tibet, Bangladesh and Myanmar was prompted by my father’s experiences in the region during WW2 in the Burma Campaign and brought into sharp relief on-going themes in my work, the impact the past has on the present, the relationship of time and place, identity and memory and the transcultural experiences caused by war, colonisation and migration. The drawings I made on location, the objects I collected and the notes and photographs I took formed the basis of the bookwork: NAGALAND borders boundaries belonging. When making the finished work the material quality of the object and the processes by which it was made become very important. The historical resonance of the medium and the time consuming nature of the process reflect the embedding of form and idea, and paid homage to the material culture of the Naga hill tribes. The bookwork was hand-bound, handset and printed by letterpress. Some spreads were printed in 6 colours and the book took over a year to produce. I see my practice as echoing that of generations of Lady travellers; embracing the need to journey, be in a liminal space, to have a plan but not be afraid to divert from it. To be alone, take a sketchbook and make images is, for me, the definition of the itinerant illustrator; one who travels widely in geographic space, visual forms and ideas, in order to get lost and find the unlooked for.

The Punk-Rock King: Musical Anachronism in Period Film

Music has a powerful indexical ability to evoke particular times and places. Such an ability has been exploited at length by the often-elaborate soundscapes of period films, which regularly utilise incidental scores and featured period songs to help root their narrative action in past times, and to immerse their audiences in the sensibilities of a different age. However, this article will begin to examine the ways in which period film soundtracks can also be used to complicate a narrative sense of time and place through the use of ‘musical anachronism’: music conspicuously ‘out of time’ with the temporality depicted on screen. Through the analysis of a sequence from the film W.E. (Madonna, 2011) and the consideration of existing critical and conceptual contexts, this article will explore how anachronistic soundtracks can function beyond ‘postmodern novelty’ or ‘nuisance’ to historical verisimilitude, instead offering alternative modes of engagement with story and history.