Ballarat Writers Festival: Queer Wars, an Interview with Dennis Altman

In a session not to be missed at the Ballarat Writers Festival, Lucinda Horrocks interviews the Australian academic and novelist Dennis Altman AM, one of the world’s most influential writers on sexuality and politics.

In this session Dennis will talk about LGBT rights in a global era, the gay civil rights movement and democracy, and will look back on the era of 1970s gay liberation and the publication of his first influential work Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation.

Where: Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka, 102 Stawell Street South, Ballarat, Victoria, 3350.

When: Sunday 22nd October, 2:30pm-3:30pm.

Tickets: Festival Day Pass $50/$45/$40 | Festival Weekend Pass $80/$75/$70

Bookings: http://www.ballaratwritersfestival.com/2017-festival/tickets/

More information

Dennis Altman, photo by Wind & Sky Productions.

Dennis Altman is the son of Jewish refugees, and a writer and academic who first came to attention with the publication of his book Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation in 1972. This book, which has often been compared to Greer’s Female Eunuch and Singer’s Animal Liberation was the first serious analysis to emerge from the gay liberation movement, and was published in seven countries, with a readership which continues today.

Altman has written thirteen books exploring sexuality, politics and their inter-relationship in Australia, the United States and now globally. These include The Homosexualization of America; AIDS and the New Puritanism; Rehearsals for Change; Gore Vidal’s America and Fifty First State?, as well as a novel (The Comfort of Men) and memoirs (Defying Gravity). His book, Global Sex (Chicago U.P, 2001), has been translated into five languages, including Spanish, Turkish and Japanese. Most recently has co-edited Why Human Security Matters [Allen & Unwin], Thinking Politically about HIV [Routledge] and How to Vote Progressive in Australia [Monash U.P.]. The End of the Homosexual? was published by UQP in 2013, and in 2016 Polity published Queer Wars [co-authored with Jonathan Symons].

Altman is Emeritus Professor and Professorial Fellow in the Institute for Human Security at LaTrobe University in Melbourne. He was President of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific (2001-5), and has been a member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society and a Board member of Oxfam Australia. In 2005 he was Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard, and has been has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, New York University and Chicago University. He was listed by The Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever [July 4 2006], and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia June 2008. In 2013 he was awarded the Simon and Gagnon Award for career contributions to the field of sociology of sexualities by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Sexualities, and in 2017 awarded a Doctor of Letters [honoris causa] by Macquarie University. He is an Ambassador for the Human Rights Law Centre and Patron Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives and the Gay and Lesbian Fund of Australia.

For more information about the Ballarat Writers Festival or to view the festival program visit http://www.ballaratwritersfestival.com/

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