U.S. Modernism: Totally Gay?

Newswise — During the Cold War, the United States stepped onto the world stage as an artistic force, producing what was recognized for the first time as a bona fide national culture. At the same time, a period of unprecedented persecution began for homosexuals in America. Which is why nobody knows what to make of the fact that so much of this new national culture was being produced by the very gay painters, playwrights, composers and poets it persecuted. But starting at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday October 14, some scholars at the University of Chicago will begin to ask why, as the "Queer Origins of Modern American Culture" workshop series begins.

For George Chauncey, Professor in the Department of History and the College, "It's a paradox I've become increasingly interested in: This was a time when homosexuals were marginalized and demonized as never before in American society, and yet it's precisely this era when they were a creative force doing much to create what came to be known as American national culture." Chauncey realized that previously unconnected scholars were asking this question for the first time. "My own work got me interested and then I read a manuscript by Nadine Hubbs, from the University of Michigan's Music department, so I thought it would be interesting to put together a series and put this topic on the table."

"The series asks how it would affect our understanding of American culture to take seriously the gay social networks and patronage and distinctly queer sensibilities and idioms that influenced (to a greater or lesser degree) the work of the composers Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Leonard Bernstein, and Billy Strayhorn; the playwrights Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and William Inge; the poets John Ashbury, James Schuyler, Frank O'Hara, Allen Ginzberg, and Robert Duncan; the painters Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenburg; the avant-garde filmmakers Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, and Jack Smith; the choreographers Jose Limon, Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, and Jerome Robbins; the writers James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote-to name only some of the most famous and influential.

At a time when the arts were dominated by white men, why were so many of those men gay? What does it mean that so many of the sounds, images, styles, and themes that came to define "American national culture"-especially "high" but also "low," both established and avant-garde-had queer origins, especially since their influence grew at the very moment when the guardians of national identity sought with unprecedented vigor to exclude homosexuals from membership in the national community?

Chauncey explained that this paradox was widely remarked on at the time. "Within the arts there was an acute recognition of it. Our fourth speaker will talk about the anxiety that critics expressed: the "dangerous homosexual influence" on the arts was a regular critical theme in 50s and 60s. Gays were often represented as part of a subversive homosexual conspiracy that had a stranglehold on the arts and threatened national cultural identity. There were strong parallels between antigay discourse on the one hand and anticommunist and anti-Semitic discourse on the other."

Yet this striking fact hasn't yet struck most historians of the period: "It's something we haven't examined at all: First because cultural historians that normally talk about these arts have preferred not to discuss it or at best haven't had a sophisticated category for thinking about it. At the same time gay historians have focused on gays as marginalized and oppressed-and they certainly were-but that doesn't give us a full picture."

The program is as follows:

October 14 (Tuesday, 3:30). Nadine Hubbs, Music Theory, University of Michigan, "Orchestrating National Identity: Queer Modernists' Creation of 'America's Sound'"

January 22 (Thursday, 3:30).Susan Manning, English and Theater, Northwestern University, "Making a (Queer) American Dance: José Limón, Merce Cunningham, and Alvin Ailey"

March 4 (Thursday, 3:30). Douglas Crimp, Art and Art History, Rochester University, "Coming Together to Stay Apart: Andy Warhol's Collaboration with Ronald Tavel"

April 15 (Thursday, 3:30). Michael Sherry, History, Northwestern University, "The Homintern: Critical Anxieties about Homosexual Influence on the Arts in Cold War America"

All events are free and open to the public, and will be followed by a reception. The program is organized by the Lesbian and Gay Studies Project and co-sponsored by the American Studies, Performance Studies, Social History, and Gender and Sexuality Studies Workshops.