stormdog | (no subject)

A Facebook memory from 7 years ago led to me writing about Syracuse.

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The best parts of my brief span in the geography master's program at Syracuse were the times I could get really involved in the research I was doing as an RA for a professor who was looking at US patent records as an alternative text to traditional historical literature for learning about the history of modern cartographic innovation.

The strange emails I'm getting to send as part of this research make me smile sometimes. I hope the archives folks who receive them get a smile out of them too. This one is going to Barry University of Miami, Florida. In 1950, it was an all women Dominican University.

"Greetings!

I have what's probably a rather unusual historical question about Barry University for you.

I'm a Syracuse University grad student who is researching cartographic inventors. One of my research subjects, Robert Gatliff of Miami, Florida, created hats and dresses made of items for sale at the hardware store he worked at. I have a 1950 article from the Miami Daily News that indicates that Barry College graduates would be modeling Gatliff's creations at a "Beachcomber Party" at the Coronado Cabana club on 31 May 1950.

By any chance, do you have any historical material on Barry University that could include any information or photographs of this event? Attached is a copy of the newspaper article in case it's helpful; it's from the Tuesday, May 30, 1950 issue, page 6-A.

Thanks very much for your time!"

The worst parts of my time at Syracuse, on the other hand, included:

*Internalizing feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness that are still with me today after reading and discussing the literature on social justice in an urban context.

*Interacting with my advisor who, at a meal at a restaurant he took a class I was in out for, dismissively said that Michele Foucault was a "pervert" who intentionally had sex with people to give them AIDS.

Miriam is fairly sure that the latter was one of the experiences that made Syracuse feel like the wrong place for me, as a bi/pan, kinky, in-the-closet-to-myself transwoman who finds a lot of meaning and value in Foucault's thoughts. Certainly, I remember that moment better than anything I learned in the class he was teaching.

Maybe she's right. Personally, I think it was both, and probably more.

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That was Sorman who later admitted that there was absolutely no evidence whatever for Foucault being a 'pervert' although he is known to have died of an AIDS related illness and his partner confirmed that this was the case.

My problems with that statement from my advisor:

To me, "pervert" in that context means that my advisor simply didn't like his sexual practices. Foucault was a gay man who frequented bath houses and was into BDSM. That makes him a pervert in the eyes of people who think being gay is perverted, or that particular kinds and frequencies of consensual sex with people in spaces dedicated to that purpose is perverted.

And like many gay men of his time, he died of AIDS. AIDS was so poorly understood for a lot of that time, that saying Foucault was intentionally spreading it is pretty misguided.

I lived through that era and lost so many friends, so this kind of thing makes me very angry indeed.

I have a couple of gay guy friends on here who are of that generation- can you imagine?

It also took my favourite poet- Thom Gunn.