‘Heavier than Air’ is a stage-to-screen film based on interview data from research conducted with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer teachers working in different educational settings in Australia. Since 2015, this play, devised by Anne Harris (RMIT University) and Stacy Holman Jones (Monash University) has been staged in Australia, Singapore, USA, and Scotland. This is a film adaptation directed by Edgar Rodríguez-Dorans.

With this event, the Staff Pride Network for LGBT+ Colleagues & Allies launched its Research Seminar Series. Heavier than Air helps to educate non-LGBTQIA+ audiences, along with education administrators, students, and staff about the experiences of social inclusion and mental health needs of LGBTQIA+ people, providing LGBTQIA+ teachers with an opportunity to see their sometimes welcoming, sometimes violently exclusionary experiences at their workplace depicted on film. The film was followed by a discussion on how qualitative research and performing arts converge to rethink research methodologies and research communication in humanities and social sciences.

The Film

The Discussion

I’m happy to let you know that the Library now has access to the LGBT Magazine Archive from ProQuest until 31st December 2021. This primary source database is a searchable archive of major periodicals devoted to LGBT+ interests, dating from the 1950s through to recent years.

You can access the LGBT Magazine Archive via the Newspapers, Magazines and Other News Sources guide. Or you can access it via the Databases A-Z list. Individual magazine titles will be added to DiscoverEd this week.

The archives of magazines serving LGBT+ communities are of central importance for research into LGBT history, often being the principal sources for the documentation of gay cultures, lives, and events. Researchers consulting these publications may trace the history and evolution of myriad aspects of LGBT history and culture, including legal contexts, health, lifestyle, politics, social attitudes, activism, gay rights, and arts/literature. Despite the value of these publications for research, however, locating the backfiles in print format has been difficult for researchers as they have not typically been collected by libraries.

The archives of leading but previously hard-to-find magazines are included in LGBT Magazine Archive, including many of the longest-running, most influential publications of this type. This includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay News and its successor publication Gay Times, respectively. As well as titles such as The Pink Paper, Just for Us and Transgender Tapestry.

LGBT Magazine Archive provides indispensable material for dedicated LGBT studies and broader gender/sexuality research, while also catering to interests in many related fields, such as 20th-century history, sociology, health studies, political science, and psychology.

You can access the LGBT Magazine Archive via the Newspapers, Magazines and Other News Sources guide. Or you can access it via the Databases A-Z list. Individual magazine titles will be added to DiscoverEd this week.

You can find more databases and other resources related to LGBT+ and gender studies on the Gender Studies guide.

We have access to LGBT Magazine Archive via a larger subscription deal with ProQuest that is active until 31st December 2021. More information about the huge range of resources that will become available through this deal is coming soon!

Access is only available to current students and staff at the University of Edinburgh.

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for School of Social and Political Science

[Originally posted: http://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/spslibrarian/2020/06/15/new-lgbt-magazine-archive/]

The Staff Pride Network is creating a subject specialist database bringing together scholars – PhD
students, early career researchers, and established academics – working on LGBTQIA+ topics,
reflecting the combined strength of the University of Edinburgh expertise in the field.

What is the Register of Expertise?

The register of expertise will be a database of scholars engaged with LGBTQIA+ research. The
register will aim to enable knowledge exchange and facilitate contact between those with common
interests or areas of research. The database would be comprehensive in terms of disciplines and
research approaches.

The aim of the database is to contribute to the sharing of research and ideas across the university
and beyond. This could be supported through a variety of both on and offline spaces. The base for
this will be an online register of expertise in LGBTQIA+ research. Possibilities for development could
be a regular feature in the Staff Pride Network Blog (‘LGBTQIA+ research in focus’), a ‘Staff Pride
Network Seminar Series’ to disseminate completed research and work in progress.
The information to provide will be: contact details, areas of interest, research (relevant books,
publications, projects, other outputs), and a summary of current work.

How to join?

If you are a scholar working on any aspect of LGBTQIA+ research and are interested in joining the
‘Register of Expertise’, please let us know by emailing our Research Officer – Edgar Rodriguez-Dorans
at edgar.rodriguez-dorans@ed.ac.uk

By Anabel Noelke & Jonathan MacBride

As part of February’s LGBT+ History Month calendar, Anabel Noelke hosted a seminar ‘LGBT+ and the Media’. Both staff and students attended and after an introduction and video showing her research Anabel led a vibrant discussion. The following month Anabel presented her research at Dentsu in London and has since been published in a journal. The following email was sent on 15th March to the entire Business School staff mailing list and it made me proud to see my workplace promoting a colleague’s work in the LGBT+ sphere. 

Email: 

I’m delighted to let you know about a tremendous piece of engagement and knowledge exchange arising from Ana-isabel Noelke’s PhD research that she undertook last week in London. Anabel was invited to speak about her research to employees of the Dentsu Aegis Network, a multinational media and digital marketing communications company headquartered in London, owned by Japanese advertising and public relations firm Dentsu.  

Anabel spoke to around 50 practitioners, including some clients such as Diageo and Vodafone, as well as representatives from Campaign UK, Marketing Week and Buzzfeed. She was also interviewed by the Campaign UK reporter for a piece she is writing on the topic. 

The talk revolved around the history of LGBT portrayals in advertising and recent changes based on her recently accepted sole-authored Journal of Homosexuality publication: 

Making Diversity Conform? An Intersectional, Longitudinal Analysis of LGBT-Specific Mainstream Media Advertisements.  

She discussed the challenges of advertising to any stigmatised/marginalised consumer group as well as the harm that can come from the use of stereotypes or tropes, before describing the ways in which brands have navigated the issue in recent years – for example through the use of TV or print ‘trailer’ ads combined with ‘Human Interest’ ads or ‘making-off’ videos online. She drew on quotes from her qualitative research to illustrate how different types of portrayals and ad formats were experienced by participants, before ending the talk with three successful features of LGBT advertising and six suggestions for best practice. 

Anabel’s presentation was followed by just under two hours of networking and informal discussion with participants, and she has been asked if she would come back to present to a client-oriented event later in the year.   

Anabel has also developed a video to tell her research story, which has been shared with Dentsu Aegis and is on YouTube:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X82Q8QW8IJQ&t=12s 

It is really inspiring to see how Anabel’s research is already making a difference and what an excellent ambassador she is for the School and the PhD programme!