For LGBT history month gut blogger Prof Lloyd Llewellyn-Jon (Chair of Ancient History, Cardiff Universy) asks: 'Alexanr the Great or Alexanr the Gay?' before his talk this week.
Contents:
- ALEXANR THE GREAT OR ALEXANR THE GAY?
- ALEX THE ASTRONT: 'I DIDN’T WANT TO TELL ANYONE THAT I WAS GAY, LET ALONE LNS OF STRANGERS'
ALEXANR THE GREAT OR ALEXANR THE GAY?
Alexanr the Great or Alexanr the Gay?
For LGBT history month, gut blogger Prof Lloyd Llewellyn-Jon (Chair of Ancient History, Cardiff Universy) asks: 'Alexanr the Great or Alexanr the Gay? I thk he probably was gay.
It was supposed to say ‘Alexanr the Gay’, but someone translated wrong to ‘Alexanr the Great. The qutn of Alexanr’s homosexualy, once the prerve of scholars such as Tarn whose termed attempt 1948, ‘to straighten the matter out’ (no pun tend, surely) and close future discsn down, met only wh Badian’s hatchet-job of a dissectn of Tarn’s own pedantic nservatism a later. The sexual revolutn of the 1960s and 1970s stimulated even Classicists to thk new and excg ways, and Alexanr’s sexualy was thrown wi open for bate – classrooms, on gay polil march, popular lerature, magaz, pornography – and the strengtheng gay muni of the liberal wt happily embraced the ancient ler not only as a gay prototype, but as a gay hero.
ALEX THE ASTRONT: 'I DIDN’T WANT TO TELL ANYONE THAT I WAS GAY, LET ALONE LNS OF STRANGERS'
In recent s enthiastic (if flawed) gay-tert webs have been bily appropriatg Alexanr as a role mol for the morn gay man; so much so, ed, that the Cassell’s Queer Compann entry dited to the Macedonian nqueror not that Alexanr is a staple the long list of historil gays that have been ‘claimed ‘om history.
The talk is not even ncerned wh iologi surroundg ancient exprsns of sexual inty eher, but do look at ntemporary exprsns of the sexual and genred self bee our foc is explorg morn ncepts of homosexual inti which have attached themselv to the figure of Alexanr the Great. Takg as s startg pot this lecture will exame several twenty-first century rpons to ‘Alexanr the Gay’ by people who intify themselv through a range of genrs and sexuali. For some though, Alexanr is not jt a top ten gay hero, he is the ultimate fantasy whose kiss we ntue to crave.