Ramzi Fawaz: Queer Love on Barbary Lane

The Sexual Politics of Serial Gay Fiction in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City

Author and literary scholar Ramzi Fawaz, a 2019-20 Humanities Center fellow, takes us down Barbary Lane in his presentation on the reading experiences of Bay Area residents who encountered Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City when it first appeared as a serial in the San Francisco Chronicle between 1976 and 1983.

Drawing on oral history interviews, Fawaz will discuss readers’ emotional responses to Maupin’s events, characters, and storylines. In particular, he’ll track the ways Tales of the City made the gay liberation call to come out of the closet available to a wide range of readers, thus disseminating the values of the movement to audiences far beyond the limits of gay radical political activism.

Following the talk, there will be an opportunity for Q&A with Professor Fawaz.

This event will take place on Zoom.