A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers, 1983-2008 is the first lesbian and queer historical geography of New York City. Join us to hear from author Jen Jack Gieseking about their research exploring how lesbians and queers have survived in the face of twenty-first century gentrification and urban development.

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Over the past few decades, rapid gentrification in New York City has led to the disappearance of many lesbian and queer spaces, displacing some of the most marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community. In A Queer New York, Jen Jack Gieseking highlights the historic significance of these spaces, mapping the political, economic, and geographic dispossession of an important, thriving community that once called certain New York neighborhoods home.

Focusing on well-known neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Park Slope, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Crown Heights, Gieseking shows how lesbian and queer neighborhoods have folded under the capitalist influence of white, wealthy gentrifiers who have ultimately failed to make room for them. Nevertheless, they highlight the ways lesbian and queer communities have succeeded in carving out spaces—and lives—in a city that has consistently pushed its most vulnerable citizens away.

Jen Jack Gieseking is an urban cultural geographer, feminist and queer theorist, and environmental psychologist. They are Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Kentucky. His first monograph, A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers, 1983-2008 (NYU Press, 2020), is a historical geography of contemporary lesbian-queer society and economies in New York City. As part of his commitment to public queer history, Jack created a companion website including interactive maps of over 3,000 lesbian and queer places and organizations that they gathered from archival sources: jgieseking.org/AQNY. They also co-edited The People, Place, and Space Reader (Routledge, 2014) with William Mangold, Cindi Katz, Setha Low, and Susan Saegert. Jack is Managing Editor of ACME: International Journal of CriticalGeography, the only fully open access journal in geography. He is also a board member of the Rainbow Heritage Network. They can be found on Twitter at @jgieseking or via his website jgieseking.org.

This event is part of our Preservation Book Club. Thank you to our program sponsors the Peggy N. and Roger G. Gerry Charitable Trust.