Amin Ghaziani and Diarmuid Hester

Sociologist Professor Amin Ghaziani and cultural historian and activist Dr Diarmuid Hester discuss common themes of displacement, courage, determination and freedoms won in their books about gay life and queer identity.

In Long Live Queer Nightlife: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution Ghaziani uses his own experience of underground parties in London to uncover an unexpected revolution revitalising urban night life. Ghaziani explains how he found a scene far removed from the traditional image of the gay bar and its largely white, gay male clientele. Instead, it was a world of secret parties where culture creatives, many of them queer, trans and from racial minorities, were reclaiming the night in the name of those left out. Ghaziani is professor of sociology and Canada Research Chair in Urban Sexualities at the University of British Columbia. He researched his book while a visiting professor at London School of Economics. He is the author of The Dividends of Dissent, Sex Cultures, and There Goes the Gayborhood?

In Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Histories, Hester brings to life the stories of seven figures and the connections between where they lived, who they loved and the art they created. They include the writer, E M Forster, the French dancer and singer, Josephine Baker, and the surrealist, Claude Cahun. Hester argues that a queer sense of place is central to the history of the 20th century. Hester is an expert on sexually dissident literature, art, film and performance and teaches at the University of Cambridge. He co-founded Cambridge’s queer performance and music night Club Urania.