This event is TICKETED. You may purchase a copy of the book or a $5 admission ticket.

Join us for an in-person event with assistant professor of history and the director of the Public History Initiative at Cornell University Stephen Vider for a discussion of his new book The Queerness of Home: Gender, Sexuality & Politics of Domesticity after World War II. Joining Stephen in conversation is longtime Slate writer and editor June Thomas. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store’s 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

Can’t make the event? Purchase a signed copy of the book here.

STRAND IN-PERSON EVENT COVID-19 POLICY:

In-person events will be presented to a fully vaccinated audience. All patrons over the age of sixteen will be required to show proof* of having completed the COVID-19 vaccination series at least 14 daysprior to the date of the event. New York State has now clarified that a child up to the age of 16 who is unvaccinated and accompanied by a vaccinated adult may, in fact, attend events that otherwise are open only to people who are vaccinated. In such an event, the child will not need to be socially distanced, but they will need to wear masks at all times while attending the event.

*Proof of vaccination will be defined as either an original vaccination card or an Excelsior Pass. We will be checking to ensure compliance with the 14 day waiting period post-vaccination.

For contact tracing purposes, buyers must submit the following information at checkout for each attendee in the attending pod: Full Name, Address, Date of Birth, Email Address, and Phone Number. Registration will be required online. No tickets for entry will be sold at the door.

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Vider uncovers how LGBTQ people reshaped domestic life in the postwar United States.

From the Stonewall riots to the protests of ACT UP, histories of queer and trans politics have almost exclusively centered on public activism. In The Queerness of Home, Stephen Vider turns the focus inward, showing that the intimacy of domestic space has been equally crucial to the history of postwar LGBTQ life.

Beginning in the 1940s, LGBTQ activists looked increasingly to the home as a site of connection, care, and cultural inclusion. They struggled against the conventions of marriage, challenged the gendered codes of everyday labor, reimagined domestic architecture, and contested the racial and class boundaries of kinship and belonging. Retelling LGBTQ history from the inside out, Vider reveals the surprising ways that the home became, and remains, a charged space in battles for social and economic justice, making it clear that LGBTQ people not only realized new forms of community and culture for themselves—they remade the possibilities of home life for everyone.