Monthly Archives: October 2017

Emotions in Modern British History Seminar: James Southern ‘The ‘Spotting a Homosexual Checklist’: Masculinity, Homosexuality, and the British Foreign Office, 1965-1991’.

*please note the change in date of this event*

Our second paper in the ‘Emotions in Modern British History’ series will be delivered on 22 November by James Southern (QMUL). James’s paper is titled ‘The ‘Spotting a Homosexual Checklist’: Masculinity, Homosexuality, and the British Foreign Office, 1965-1991’.

Abstract:

At the end of the 1960s, the sexual revolution arrived at the doors of the British Foreign Office. The partial decriminalisation of homosexual acts between men in 1967 meant that diplomats would have to decide whether or not to allow openly gay men to join the Diplomatic Service. Wary of recent high-profile diplomatic scandals associated with homosexuality like those of Guy Burgess in 1951 and John Vassall in 1962, the Foreign Office decided that homosexuality represented a security risk and therefore an automatic bar to employment in the Diplomatic Service – a policy which lasted until 1991. This paper uses Foreign Office files and oral history interviews to chart policymakers’ discussion around the introduction of the bar, analysing what definitions of “homosexuality” were used, why gay men were deemed unfit for service, and how the Foreign Office understood its policy in relation to the shifting social context of postwar Britain. The history of gender, sexuality and emotions within social elites is still a burgeoning field, and this paper draws on work by Martin Francis and Michael Roper in its approach. In its analysis of the Diplomatic Service sexuality bar, the paper aims to identify the types of emotional ‘communities’ institutionalised at the FCO which facilitated the maintenance of such an exclusionary policy. Heavily influenced by the gendering of Cold War diplomatic culture by the U.S. State Department, the Foreign Office hastily created an ill-defined and unenforceable bar on gay men and lesbians, from which much can be learned about the emotional economy of diplomacy, and the relationship between masculinity and elite professional life, in 1960s Britain.

No need to book. Lunch is provided.

The talk will take place in room 3.16, Arts Two, Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.


Other papers in this series include:

4pm, 6th December: Helen McCarthy ‘Graduate Mothers and Emotional Labour in 1960s Britain’.

See our events programme for more information.

Emotions in Modern British History Seminar: Helen McCarthy, ‘Graduate Mothers and Emotional Labour in 1960s Britain’.

Our final seminar this semester in this series will be delivered by Helen McCarthy (QMUL). Helen’s paper is titled ‘Graduate Mothers and Emotional Labour in 1960s Britain’.

Helen’s paper will be followed by the Centre’s Christmas drinks party. All are welcome.

The talk will take place in room 2.17, Arts Two, Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.


Other papers in this series include:

1pm, 22nd November. James Southern ‘The ‘Spotting a Homosexual Checklist’: Masculinity, Homosexuality, and the British Foreign Office, 1965-1991’. 3.16 Arts 2.

See our events programme for more information.

Emotions in Modern British History Lunchtime Seminar: Andrew Seaton ‘Emotion on the Ward: Making Social Democracy in the Early National Health Service’

Our first lunchtime seminar this semester will be delivered by Andrew Seaton (NYU) and chaired by Helen McCarthy (QMUL). Andrew’s paper is titled ‘Emotion on the Ward: Making Social Democracy in the Early National Health Service’. No need to book. Lunch provided.

Abstract: In July 2018, the National Health Service (NHS) will celebrate its seventieth ‘birthday’. NHS surgeries, clinics, and hospitals, in every town and city across Britain, are a testament to enduring postwar social democratic ideals. But why does nationalised medicine still stand when other parts of the universalist welfare state crumbled? This paper addresses this question by considering the making of social democracy on hospital wards in the 1940s-1960s. Following the experience of one patient in a maternity hospital, I explore the changing emotional dynamics of being hospitalised in postwar Britain. While anger, anxiety, and frustration posed a significant threat to the fledgling NHS, affection and communal bonds between patients and staff made possible its longer survival.

The talk will take place in room 2.17, Arts Two, Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.


Other papers in this series include:

1pm, 22nd November: James Southern ‘The ‘Spotting a Homosexual Checklist’: Masculinity, Homosexuality, and the British Foreign Office, 1965-1991’.

4pm, 6th December: Helen McCarthy ‘Graduate Mothers and Emotional Labour in 1960s Britain’.

See our events programme for more information.