Athens, Ga. – E. Patrick Johnson, professor, chair and director of graduate studies in the department of performance studies and professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University, will give the 14th annual Andrea Carson Coley Lecture, “Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales,” on Friday, April 4, at 12:30 p.m. in the M. Smith Griffith Auditorium in the Georgia Museum of Art. A reception honoring the Coley family will precede the lecture at 11:30 a.m. in the GMOA lobby.
Based on excerpts from his forthcoming book, Sweet Tea: An Oral History of Gay Black Men of the South, Johnson looks at the relationship between race, sexuality and Southern culture through his interviews with approximately 70 men spanning three generations. Johnson has published widely in the areas of race, gender, sexuality and performance. His book, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (Duke University Press, 2003) has won several awards, including the Lila A. Heston Award and the Errol Hill Book Award. His next project is a book of auto-ethnographic essays on race, class and gender.
The Andrea Carson Coley Lecture in Women’s Studies was endowed through a donation made by Andrew and Kathy Coley in memory of their daughter Andrea Carson Coley (1972-1993), who was a certificate candidate in Women’s Studies. Each spring, the lecture brings to campus scholars doing cutting-edge research in the area of lesbian and gay studies. This year’s lecture is sponsored by the Institute for Women’s Studies, the Georgia Museum of Art, the LGBT Resource Center, the Department of Intercultural Affairs and the Graduate School. For more information contact the Institute for Women’s Studies at 706/542-2846 or online at www.uga.edu/iws.