Hi, my name is Grace. (I also go by GVGK.)

I'm a public history MA student at Temple University, with a keen interest in digital humanities and museum curation. I specialize in transnational queer history and politics, nascent community building, and identity construction.

I graduated summa cum laude from Temple in 2017 with a BA in history and sociology, and a minor in LGBT studies. My honors undergraduate history thesis traced the origin of queer identity politics in Germany and England in the late nineteenth century and their transference to the United States. This work, titled "'Glory of Yet Another Kind': The Evolution & Politics of First-Wave Queer Activism, 1867-1924," was awarded the Livingstone Undergraduate Research Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

^{Karl Heinrich Ulrichs staged the world’s first queer protest 150 years ago.}

As an undergraduate, I worked as a research assistant for the Director of The Center for Public History at Temple, Dr. Hilary Iris Lowe. For this job, I learned how to review, digitize, and research microfilm. I also worked for renowned gay historian Jonathan Ned Katz on his grassroots LGBT history initiative OutHistory.org. Together, we developed a web-based, interactive timeline of international queer activism for the 2016 Gay American History @ 40 Conference, marking the fortieth anniversary of his seminal anthology Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA (1976). It is now crowdsourcing contributions.

In the summer/fall of 2016, I interned at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP), collecting and digitizing historic manuscripts and graphics, and learning how to work with archival metadata. At HSP, I curated the "'One Manly Soul': White Masculinities in Late Colonial America" exhibition in collaboration with the Digital Paxton Project. This project explored the 1763 Conestoga Massacre and subsequent pamphlet war, presenting how the Paxton Boy's atrocity typified white masculinity and its contemporary reevaluations.

This past summer and fall, I interned at the John J. Wilcox, Jr. LGBT Archives, processing approximately 5,000 pamphlets, posters, and other graphic material from the AIDS Library Graphics Collection. Through this work, I learned how to research archival materials and their provenance. In collaboration with local community leaders, elder activists, and scholars, I curated an exhibition of these materials titled "Still Fighting For Our Lives: A History of HIV/AIDS in Philadelphia," sponsored by the William Way LGBT Community Center. Using graphics, artifacts, audio and video, we were able to highlight the central role that visual culture has played in Philadelphia’s HIV/AIDS history. Local HIV/AIDS service organization Philadelphia FIGHT hosted our opening event in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Philadelphia AIDS Library (located at FIGHT).

^{"Our legacies have been doubly obscured and destroyed by homophobia and racism."}

My article “Sex in the Archives: The Politics of Processing & Preserving Pornography in the Digital Age” was recently published in the eightieth issue of The American Archivist (Fall/Winter 2017). I am currently continuing my research on taboo topics and primary sources in the history of sexuality, including pornography and BDSM. It is my sincerest wish to subvert canonical conceptions of the study of identity through the use of "inappropriate" evidence and language. Rather than shying away from stigma, my work wields discomfort as a tool – used to penetrate and deconstruct elite and exclusive sites of knowledge production.

I currently serve as the Graduate Extern for Gender & Sexuality Inclusion at Temple's Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership – developing campus-wide LGBTQIA+ programming for students, faculty and staff. I am also a member of the National Council on Public History’s Diversity & Inclusion Task Force. After obtaining my MA in public history, I intend to pursue my PhD in history, and become a historical consultant for film and television series. (My dream is to write and produce my own work like Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.) I aspire to engage the needs of disenfranchised communities and encourage inclusive, meaningful dialogues through thought-provoking media and exhibitions.

I’m also a hardcore Star Trek fan – I’ve seen every episode of every series, but Deep Space Nine is my favorite.

^{100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment is part of a graduate course at Temple University's Center for Public History and is exploring history and empowering education to endow meaning. To learn more click here.}