A Portrait of Queer America: Outline

Howdy,

My name is Fred Carriles and I am currently a first year student at New College of Florida. My academic interests and Area of Concentration are in Sociology and Gender Studies. Before I outline the specifics of this Independent Research Project (ISP) I'll tell you a bit about myself, my interests, and my overall career goals and how it relates to this project.

I consider myself an activist and have made it my goal to one day work for a non-profit geared towards protecting the rights of LGBTQ individuals. I have worked with several LGBT organizations and am currently a PFLAG National Scholar and a Horatio Alger National Scholar for my involvement in gay rights, particularly queer youth. Currently I work as an intern in New College of Florida's Gender and Diversity Center assisting and facilitating events that work towards campus diversity.

My ISP, 'A Portrait of Queer America', seeks to explore queer American history within the last fifty years. This ISP will make use of digital media and four texts (listed below) to post thrice weekly on this blog. Each week will focus on a different period in queer American history: the first week (Jan. 3 - Jan. 7) will focus on the 60s and 70s, the second week (Jan. 10 - Jan. 14) will focus on the 80s, week three (Jan. 17 - Jan. 21) examines the 90s, and finally week four (Jan. 24 - Jan. 28) will take a look at the last ten years of queer American history.

Each blog post will be approximately three-hundred words in length and be unified in its focus on queer liberation and oppression. Posts will examine events of interest, people of interest, and cultural aspects of the LGBT community. The overall goal of this ISP project would be to learn more of the LGBTQ rights movement to aid in my goals as an activist.

Related Readings:
- Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies (Meem, Gibson, Alexander)
- Gay America: Struggle for Equality (Alsenas)
- Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History (Aldrich, Wotherspoon)
- Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Popular Culture (Prono)