Historian Kevin Mumford to Speak at Gustavus

Kevin Mumford, a professor in the University of Iowa’s Department of History and African-American Studies, will give a free public lecture at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 11 at Gustavus Adolphus College.

Mumford’s lecture is titled “Untangling Pathology: Black Gay History before Stonewall,” and will take place in Room 101 of the Anderson Social Science Center.

Mumford, who received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1993, teaches courses in modern African-American history, the Civil Rights Movement, and contemporary America. His research focuses on race and social inequality, involving a set of intersecting themes in urbanization, sexuality formations, civil rights, and political culture. As part of that work he has undertaken a new oral history project aimed at recovering the contributions of black gay, homosexual, or bisexual men to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

Mumford is also the author of Interzones: Black/White Sex Districts in Chicago and New York in the Early Twentieth Century – a book that revealed an extensive and complicated underworld of black and white sexual encounters.

Mumford has received fellowships from the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Research in Afro-American Culture at Harvard University; from Harvard Law School; from the Rockefeller Foundation; from the Black Atlantic Project of the Center for Historical Studies at Rutgers University; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Mumford’s appearance at Gustavus is sponsored by the Departments of History, Political Science, Peace Studies, and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, along with the Office of Diversity Development and Multicultural Programs and the President’s Office.

For more information about Mumford’s visit to Gustavus, contact Professor of History Greg Kaster at 507-933-7431 or gkaster@gustavus.edu.