We are organizing a panel for the upcoming Berkshire Conference for Women Historians to take place in Toronto, Canada in May 22 to 25, 2014.

Our abstract:

While many historians have examined the racialization of gender and sexuality in relation to Others in American society, they most often explore how marginal masculinities have attempted to purchase into hegemonic masculinities. This panel will explore how marginalized groups of men have rejected hegemonic notions of masculinity in favor of those even further outside the boundaries of respectable American masculinities. In an attempt to reject labels of masculation and feminization put on them by American society, these groups of men injected themselves into what they perceived to be a radical hyper-masculinity.

Nathan Wilson's paper will focus on gay racialists, specifically looking at the National Socialist League in the 1970s in San Francisco. The NS League was unique among far-right groups in courting exclusively gay men. The subsequent backlash to this group from both gay activist organizations and neo-Nazi groups created a space in which the long taboo topic of whether a connection between Nazism and homosexuality could finally be aired. The connection itself is a pernicious myth originating with 1920s/30s anti-fascist groups, but remains as a pejorative stereotype. In part he also hopes to explore the reasons why some gay men might have found in Nazi iconography a way to masculinize their public identities denied them by mainstream society.

Katharine Bausch's paper explores the appropriation of black masculinities by Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s. While many historians have argued that SDS was inspired by the tactics of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, this paper examines how the men in SDS performed masculinities they found in SNCC because they perceived them as strong and hypermasculine by virtue of their racialized masculinity.

We are looking for a third panelist. We, therefore, invite anyone who is interested in being our third panelist to submit a 250 word abstract and a brief biography by December 17 to nathanw@yorku.ca and/or kbausch@yorku.ca.

Sincerely, Nathan Wilson and Katie Bausch York University, History Department