Description
Book SynopsisHow queerness and radical politics intersectedearlier than you thought. Well before Stonewall, a broad cross section of sexual dissidents took advantage of their space on the margins of American society to throw themselves into leftist campaigns. Sensitive already to sexual marginalization, they also saw how class inequality was exacerbated by the Great Depression, witnessing the terrible bread lines and bread riots of the era. They participated in radical labor organizing, sympathized like many with the earlyprewar Soviet Union, contributed to the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, opposed US police and state harassment, fought racial discrimination, and aligned themselves with the dispossessed. Whether they were themselves straight, gay, or otherwise queer, they brought sexual dissidence and radicalism into conversation at the height of the Left's influence on American culture. Combining rich archival research with inventive analysis of art and literature, Love's Next Meeti
Trade Review“A startling and joyful work of scholarship, a book about revolutionary people that feels revolutionary itself.” * Jacobin *
"Nothing less than revelatory. . . . As Lecklider shows, through a combination of meticulous archival research and astute, often surprising analysis, in the decades before Stonewall, homosexual and gender nonconforming men and women were fighting for liberation through involvement with the Left. . . . They took part in radical labor organizing, joined the fight against Fascism in the Spanish Civil War, opposed racism, sexism, and state and police repression. They were intersectional
avant la lettre." * PopMatters *
“Rather than treat political radicalism and dissident sexuality as discrete phenomena, Lecklider convincingly demonstrates how sexual “deviance” and anti-capitalist views coevolved alongside racial and immigrant justice and women’s liberation in the context of the US's diversifying urban centers. . . . Students of sexuality, American radicalism, and urban history will learn much from
Love’s Next Meeting.” * CHOICE *
“Lecklider traces a usable past for queer-Left politics that is saturated with humor and memorable detail. . . .
Love’s Next Meeting makes a major contribution to histories of sexuality, queer politics, the Left, and American culture. Deeply researched, powerfully argued, and passionately written." * Journal of the History of Sexuality *
"Pithy and provocative,
Love’s Next Meeting is the culmination of Lecklider’s years long deep dive into the question of why sexual dissidents were attracted to the Old Left even though the Left officially rejected them." * Against the Current: A Socialist Journal *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Deviant Politics
1. "Flaunting the Transatlantic Breeze": Sexual Dissidents on the Left
2. "After Sex, What?": Politicizing Sex on the Left
3. "To Be One with the People": Homosexuality and the Cultural Front
4. "If I Can Die under You": Homosexuality and Labor on the Left
5. "Socialism & Sex Is What I Want": Women, Gender, and Sexual Dissidence in the 1930s and 1940s
6. "Playing the Queers": Homosexuality in Proletarian Literature
7. "We Who Are Not Ill": Queer Antifascism
8. "The Secret Element of Their Vice": Deviant Politics in the Cold War
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
