Thirty Years of Same-Sex Dynamics: D. Michael Quinn and the Queer Past

🪧 About the Event: Thirty years after the publication of D. Michael Quinn’s groundbreaking Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example, this panel brings together scholars, colleagues, and friends of Quinn to reflect on the book, the historian who wrote it, and their enduring influence on Queer and Latter-day Saint history.

Panelists Gary J. Bergera, Barbara Jones Brown, Connell O’Donovan, and Randell Hoffman will revisit Quinn’s research and arguments, considering how three decades of scholarship

have used, challenged, and extended his work on sexuality, gender, Mormonism, and the West. The conversation will also explore Quinn’s own sexuality and identity, his personal and professional experiences, and the relationship between the historian and the history he chose to write.

Together, the panel offers both a commemoration and a critical reassessment of a landmark book and of D. Michael Quinn as a Queer historian who reshaped how we understand sexuality, religion, and the Latter-day Saint past.

This event is co-hosted by the Mildred Berryman Institute and Signature Books.

💻 No remote attendance. The Mildred Berryman Institute as well as Signature Books will post the recording ASAP on YouTube.

📚 Special thanks to Signature Books for allowing us to host this event in their space!

🌈 Past lectures can be accessed on our YouTube channel or on the Berryman Lecture Series page.