Edited by Graham Willett and Yorick Smaal

In this, the latest in the Gay and Lesbian Perspectives series, researchers explore the rich history of queer Australasia, uncovering photographic records of small-town male intimacy, cases of police entrapment, the mysterious suicide pact of Charles Marks and Edward Feeny, ASIO attempts to grapple with ‘persons with serious character defects’, and previously unexamined political and cultural expressions of gay/lesbian/queer activism over the last four decades.

The result is an original and important contribution to understanding a history that is all too often shrouded in secrecy.

Contents

• Introduction Graham Willett and Yorick Smaal
• Men Together: Intimacy and Eroticism in Pre-World War I New Zealand Chris Brickell
• ‘A Gang of Judicial Assassins’: George Bateson and Colonial Sodomy Laws John Waugh
• ‘Until Death Does Part Us’: Male Friendship, Intimacy and Violence in Late Colonial Melbourne Amanda Kaladelfos
• ‘Indecent and Indecorous’ Behaviour: The Police and Homosexuality in Turn-of-the-Century Queensland Yorick Smaal
• Snippets and Shadows of Stories: Thoughts on Sources and Methods when Writing an Australian History of Sexuality Lisa Featherstone
• Missing the Lesbian and the Missing Lesbian: A Study of the Forgotten Lesbian in 1970s Australian Cinema Sophia Davidson Gluyas
• Musicals are Gay: A Brief History of Gay Men, Hollywood Divas and Movie Musicals Scott McKinnon
• ‘Persons with Serious Character Defects’: Homosexuals in the Commonwealth Public Service, 1953–1974 Robert B. French
• Womin Loving Womin: Lesbian Feminist Theories of Intimacy Rebecca Jennings
• ‘Our Heads Know, But Our Hearts Don’t Understand … ’: Debating the Meaning of the Bar Scene in the 1970s Gay Press Alan B. Petersen
• The Adelaide Homosexual Alliance and the Origins of the Gay Community Graham Willett
• HIV/AIDS Activism in Transnational Context: ACT UP in Australia Shirleene Robinson
• Queer, Student, Activism Jess Rodgers

About the editors

Graham Willett is a historian of Australia’s gay and lesbian past. He is the author of Living Out Loud, a history of the movement, and co-editor and a major contributor to Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne. He is a long-time committee member of the Australian Queer Archives.

Yorick Smaal is a historian and Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security. He has published on numerous aspects of homosexual history in Australia.

Published by Monash University Publishing, 2013. Paperback, xiii, 208 pages; portraits; 24 cm.

A$38.50 (A$33 to AQuA members), plus A$12 postage within Australia. Price includes GST.