Thursday 12th September 2024, 6.30pm
We’re lucky enough to be joined by Dr Diarmuid Hester to discuss his terrific book Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Histories! This group biography brings to life the stories of seven remarkable figures and illuminates the connections between where they lived, who they loved, and the art they created.
It shows that a queer sense of place is central to the history of the twentieth century, and powerfully evokes how much is lost when queer spaces are forgotten. From the lesbian London of the suffragettes to James Baldwin’s home in Provence, to Jack Smith’s New York, Kevin Killian’s San Francisco and the Dungeness cottage of Derek Jarman, this is a thrilling new history and a celebration of freedom, survival and the hidden places of the imagination.
Diarmuid will be in conversation with cultural critic Barry Pierce.
Dr Diarmuid Hester is a radical cultural historian, activist and author of the critically acclaimed Wrong: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper. He has held research fellowships at Cambridge University, the University of Oxford, New York University, the Library of Congress, and the British Library. Diarmuid teaches at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, and is a research associate of Emmanuel College.
Barry Pierce is a culture writer and book critic who written for the Irish Times, the Sunday Times, Dazed, AnOther, i-D, Rolling Stone, and GQ.