[Review]. Becoming Visible.
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- James V. Carmichael, Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: In a community for which social masks always have possessed special ritualistic value
(hence, "camp"), and for which personal subterfuge often has been synonymous
with survival, only complete nakedness-physical, emotional, and symbolic-can
denote visibility. The aptly titled exhibit "Becoming Visible: The Legacy of Stonewall"
held at the New York Public Library (NYPL) from June 18 through September
1994 to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the legendary Stonewall Riots
onJune 28,1969, provided the occasion for not a little bit of ill-natured grumbling
from area lesbigay curators, writers, and activists, not least of all from ethnic minorities
who felt disfranchised in the "mainstream" gay movement-pace Latino lesbians-
but also from librarians to whom NYPL's sudden self-representation as the
major regional repository of lesbigay special collections seemed opportunistic. Yes,
bickering and infighting constitute a part of the Stonewall legacy, too, one that
the lesbigay community may eventually bare without shame, since such divisions
characterize every major social movement of our time, including the Civil Rights
and Women's movements-precursors, to some extent, of the modern lesbigay
rights movement. The introduction to the present volume corrects any remaining
impression of ingratitude to the many institutions and individuals who made the
exhibit possible, although there will always be people who resent New York city's
preeminence in the gay movement-second only to San Francisco-and NYPL's
recent ascendancy as a lesbigay research repository: no good deed goes unpunished.
[Review]. Becoming Visible.
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Additional Information
- Publication
- The Library Quarterly 70 (January): 121-22.
- Language: English
- Date: 2000
- Keywords
- Gay and lesbian, Twentieth century, Social visibility, Book review