From Camp to Queer
Remaking the Australian Homosexual
A subtle and complex study of how a generation of activists came to reinvent themselves, and an outstanding contribution to the history of the gay movement in Australia.
Opinion
'Writing on homosexuality in Australia has reached a new level of maturity with Reynold's book.' (Australian Historical Studies, October 2003)
About this Title
In both the stories it tells, and in the analysis it pursues, From Camp to Queer is an outstanding contribution to the history of the gay movement in Australia.
Joy Damousi
In this important, timely and deeply engaged book, Robert Reynolds traces the passionate, often turbulent, courageous and committed ways in which homosexuals told new stories, reinvented their lives, reshaped their sense of identity, and remade the meanings of citizenship and belonging.
Jeffrey Weeks
In the 1960s and 1970s many Australians began thinking about some radical questions. Who are we as homosexuals? Who might we become? How are we to act politically? In short, how are we to live?
In lively prose Robert Reynolds looks at how these men and women undertook what is now a universal task: the reinvention of the self in an era of uncertainty and change, where old answers no longer suffice, and where sexuality is a core preoccupation. This agile account avoids simple, romantic or stereotyped views of the gay and lesbian movements to reveal a complex but largely forgotten history and legacy.
Reynolds delves into personal stories, moving adroitly from the camp bars of the 1960s to the openly proud homosexuals who have created a politics of homosexuality in Australia. He presents a highly readable yet complex history in which there are no simple dualities.
From camp to gay to the recent movement of queer, from modern to postmodern and a transgressive use of psychoanalysis, From Camp to Queer is a sophisticated yet highly accessible story.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Creating the Homosexual Activist
1 Sex in the Sixties
2 The Politics of Homosexuality
3 Conflicting Camps
The Subjects of Gay Liberation
4 Imagining Utopia
5 Re-making the Self
6 Discovering Differences
7 Playing with Politics
8 The Search for Certainty
Epilogue: Queer Moments
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Robert Reynolds received his PhD in history at the University of Melbourne in 1997, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Policy and Practice in the Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney. He has published widely in gay history and sociology and has written regularly for the Sydney Star Observer and the Australian Book Review.
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