Around the U.S. and the world, grassroots lgbtq history projects investigate the queer past as a means of honoring the courage of those who have come before, creating a sense of community today, and understanding the exclusions and divisions that shaped their communities and continue to limit them. In this course, we participate in this national project of history-making by helping to excavate the queer past in the greater St. Louis region. Course readings will focus on the ways that sexual identities and communities in the United States have been shaped by urban settings since the late nineteenth century, with particular attention to the ways that race, class and gender have structured queer spaces and communities. In their community service project, students will work with the grassroots St. Louis LGBT History Project to research St. Louis's queer past, including conducting oral histories with local LGBTQ elders.

This collection includes Narrative Profiles: Students will compose an essay of no more than 2500 words, profiling their narrator and interpreting an aspect of St. Louis’s LGBTQ history.