CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

This proposal was written in advance of CLAGS’ Queer Middle Ages conference that was held on November 5-7, 1998. The conference was created by a panel of 15 graduate students and faculty. Perhaps the most notable of whom was Steven Kreuger, a leading Queer Medievalist who teaches in the English Department at Queens College as well as the Graduate Center. This hugely successful conference, held in co-sponsorship with New York University, was the first large-scale conference to focus on the growing academic field of queering the Middle Ages.

Although formally instituted at the CUNY Graduate Center in 1991, CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies was first conceived 5 years earlier by Martin, Duberman, one of the first historians to embrace the, then infantile, field of Queer Studies. Duberman sensed the need for a formal center devoted to queer research. As the first university-based center for LGBTQ research, CLAGS continues to demonstrate its dedication to advancing Queer Studies, by hosting public events showcasing queer research and providing fellowships to support queer scholars. Among its many notable contributions, CLAGS annually puts on at least one major conference and holds the Kessler Award Lecture every fall to celebrate a queer scholar who has made a notable contribution to the field of queer studies.