Sarah Schulman in conversation with Steven Thrasher
Second Tuesday: Sarah Schulman in conversation with Steven Thrasher
Twenty years in the making, Sarah Schulman’s “Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993” is the most comprehensive political history of ACT UP and American AIDS activism ever collected. At this event, Schulman will talk about the book with AIDS- and political-activist Steven Thrasher.
In just six years, ACT UP New York, a broad coalition of activists from many races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable attack on the institutions (including the NY Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry) and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. Based on more than 200 interviews with ACT UP members, “Let the Record Show” is a revelatory and long-overdue reassessment of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture. Schulman examines, with her characteristic rigor and bite, how a group of desperate outcasts changed America forever, and in the process created a livable future for generations of people across the world.
Purchase “Let the Record Show” from the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and receive 25% off with this code: QIZC8XRDM1HO. Good for one purchase through June 9, 2021. Thank you for supporting the Bureau!
To request an accommodation for this event, please contact Richard Morales (he/him) at rmorales@gaycenter.org or 646.502.6370.
BIOS
Sarah Schulman is an NYC-born writer, AIDS historian, and active participant citizen. She is a a co-founder of MIX: The NY LGBT Experimental Film and Video Festival, the co-director of the ACT UP Oral History Project, and the US Coordinator of the first LGBT Delegation to Palestine. Her works include “Rat Bohemia”, “The Cosmopolitans,” “Maggie Terry,” “Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America,” “The Gentrification of the Mind,” and “Conflict is Not Abuse.” She has won multiple awards for her work. She is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the College of Staten Island (CSI) and a Fellow at the NY Institute for the Humanities. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
Steven Thrasher is the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg chair of social justice in reporting (with an emphasis on issues relevant to the LGBTQ community) and an assistant professor of journalism. He has worked as writer-at-large at The Guardian, staff writer at the Village Voice, and facilitator for the NPR StoryCorps project. His articles are regularly published in the New York Times, BuzzFeed News, Esquire, the Nation, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Daily Beast. He’s also a former researcher for Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.” Follow him on Instagram and Twitter.
Details
Tuesday June 8, 2021
6:30 p.m. ET