Please join us for a conversation between Professor Lisa Duggan and Professor Samuel Huneke about queer liberation movements across history and Huneke’s new book States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. States of Liberation traces the paths of gay men in East and West Germany from the violent aftermath of the Second World War to the thundering nightclubs of present-day Berlin. Following a captivating cast of characters, from gay spies and Nazi scientists to queer politicians and secret police bureaucrats, it tells the remarkable story of how the two German states persecuted gay men – and how those men slowly, over the course of decades, won new rights and created new opportunities for themselves in the heart of Cold War Europe.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Safety protocol

In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:

If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.

Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.

All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Huneke’s States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany (University of Toronto Press, 2022, paperback, $38.95) will be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

Samuel Clowes Huneke is Assistant Professor of History at George Mason University. His research focuses on the social and political history of twentieth-century Germany. His first book, States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany (University of Toronto Press, 2022), examines gay persecution and liberation in Germany during the Cold War. He has written widely on the history of sexuality in modern Germany, publishing in scholarly journals including Central European History, New German Critique, and Journal of Contemporary History. He also writes regularly for public venues including Boston Review, The Point, and Los Angeles Review of Books.

Lisa Duggan is a journalist, activist, and Professor of Social & Cultural Analysis at New York University. She is author of Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Sensationalism and American Modernity; Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy, and Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and Neoliberal Greed.