About Summer Scholars Lunchtime Talks
The Summer Scholars season of lunchtime talks is hosted by the Eccles Institute for the Americas and Oceania at the Library and showcases the exciting and wide-ranging research into our Americas collections by the Institute’s Visiting Fellows and associates, as well as Library staff.
Free. No need to book, just drop-in.
The Atheist Pamphlet and the American Public Sphere
Florian Zappe discusses the circulation and impact of atheist pamphlet literature within the specific context of the American public sphere, which has historically been particularly resistant to atheist ideas. Florian's research focuses on secular and atheist activist writing in the United States, especially with regard to how such texts engage with and challenge dominant cultural norms.
Postal Pride: A History of the Gay and Lesbian History on Stamps Club, 1982–2012
Richard Scott Morel discusses the formation and work of the Gay and Lesbian History on Stamps Club, formed in the United States of America in 1982. Through its official philatelic journal, Lambda, he will highlight some of the ways individuals encountered and then engaged with stamps and other objects to create knowledge, meaning, identity, community and worldviews, during a pivotal period for LGBTQ+ rights.
Image: Photo by Joel Kramer, cropped and colour corrected by Daniel Case. Wikimedia Commons.
More information
About the speakers
Florian Zappe is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the European Research Council (ERC)-funded project 'The Arts of Autonomy: Pamphleteering, Popular Philology, and the Public Sphere, 1988–2018', based at the Department of American Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Germany).
Richard Scott Morel is Curator of the British Library’s Philatelic collections.
About the Eccles Institute
The Eccles Institute builds, curates and preserves the Americas and Oceania contemporary collection at the Library and champions knowledge and understanding of these regions through a rich programme of fellowships and awards, cultural events, research training, guides to the collections and initiatives for schools.
For more information about the Institute and our collections, contact eccles-institute@bl.uk or visit our blog.
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