Sexuality Takes Center Stage

The Tulane Gender and Sexuality Studies Program welcomed E. Patrick Johnson to the uptown campus recently, where he met with students to discuss his oral history methodologies. View the video of Johnson speaking with students and describing his encounter with one of his New Orleans subjects, 97-year-old “Countess Vivian.”

“If Countess Vivian can be free and be himself, I think that in 2009, that should give you the courage to be who you want to be,” Johnson told students in a class on “Sex, Gender and Play in U.S. History” taught by Red Vaughan Tremmel, a visiting faculty member in the Tulane Department of History.

E. Patrick Johnson has performed the characters from his book, Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South, across the Unites States. View the video produced by Alicia Duplessis Jasmin about Johnson's stop at Tulane.

Johnson gave a lecture-performance on his book, Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South, on Monday (Oct. 26), during which he performed many of the personae from the book in an attempt to bring the interviews to life.

He is a professor in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University.

The Tulane Gender and Sexuality Studies program, formerly called the women's studies program, launched this fall semester.