Charles Kaiser

Last updated

Charles Kaiser is an American author and journalist best known for his nonfiction books 1968 in America (1988), The Gay Metropolis (1997), and The Cost of Courage (2015). A former reporter for The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , and Newsweek , he is currently a nonfiction book critic for The Guardian .

Contents

Biography

Kaiser was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Philip Mayer Kaiser, a United States diplomat, and Hannah Greeley Kaiser; he has two brothers, one of them the journalist Robert Kaiser. [1] He grew up in Washington, Albany, New York, Dakar, Senegal, London, England, Windsor, Connecticut, and New York City. [2] Kaiser graduated from Columbia University in 1972, [3] and subsequently worked as a reporter for The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , and Newsweek .[ citation needed ] As a freelance journalist, he has contributed to The Washington Post , the Los Angeles Times , the New York Observer , New York magazine, and Vanity Fair . His first book, 1968 in America , was published in 1988.

Kaiser's second book, The Gay Metropolis (1997), is a social history that traces the cultural accomplishments and increased social acceptance of gay people in America between the years 1940 and 1996. [4] Kaiser later said that he wrote the book out of "an obligation to bear witness to what we had all lived through [during the AIDS epidemic]," explaining, "I wanted to write a book that would include AIDS, but not be overwhelmed by it". [5] In 2007, an updated edition of The Gay Metropolis was published, and Kaiser appeared on The Colbert Report to promote the book. [6] In 2019, The Guardian described the third updated edition of The Gay Metropolis as "one of the key popular studies of American social history [and] among the first accounts that sought to provide an extended history of gay life (admittedly mostly male) before and after Stonewall." [7] Kaiser's book has also been cited for popularizing the theory that Judy Garland's funeral was one of the motivating factors behind the Stonewall riots. [8]

From 2007 to 2011, Kaiser wrote Full Court Press, a blog about the media that appeared on Radar Online, the Columbia Journalism Review , and the Sidney Hillman Foundation website. [9] [10] [11]

In 2012, Kaiser wrote the afterword for a new edition of Merle Miller's landmark 1971 work On Being Different: What it Means to Be a Homosexual. [12]

Kaiser's third book, The Cost of Courage, follows the story of the Boulloches, a family who participated in the French Resistance. To research the book, Kaiser lived in France for two and a half years, interviewing surviving members of the Boulloche family and studying newly declassified documents from British intelligence agencies. [13] The Cost of Courage was published in 2015 to enthusiastic reviews from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor. [14] [15] [16] In 2015, Kaiser said that his next project would be "a big book about New York since 1970." [13]

Kaiser has taught journalism at Columbia University and Princeton University; in 2018, he was named Acting Director of the LGBTQ Public Policy Center at Hunter College.[ citation needed ] He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his husband, the artist Joe Stouter. [13]

Bibliography

Honors

Related Research Articles

The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, better known as Lambda Legal, is an American civil rights organization that focuses on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities as well as people living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) through impact litigation, societal education, and public policy work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urvashi Vaid</span> Indian-American LGBT rights activist, lawyer and writer (1958–2022)

Urvashi Vaid was an Indian-born American LGBT rights activist, lawyer, and writer. An expert in gender and sexuality law, she was a consultant in attaining specific goals of social justice. She held a series of roles at the National LGBTQ Task Force. She is the author of Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (1995) and Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics (2012).

Randy Shilts was an American journalist and author. After studying journalism at the University of Oregon, Shilts began working as a reporter for both The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for San Francisco Bay Area television stations. In the 1980s, he was noted for being the first openly gay reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leroy F. Aarons</span> American journalist, editor, author, and playwright

Leroy "Roy" F. Aarons was an American journalist, editor, author, playwright, founder of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), and founding member of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. In 2005 he was inducted into the NLGJA Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Schulman</span> American writer (born 1958)

Sarah Miriam Schulman is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She holds an endowed chair in nonfiction at Northwestern University and is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award and the Lambda Literary Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund White</span> American novelist, memoirist, and essayist (born 1940)

Edmund Valentine White III is an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and an essayist on literary and social topics. Since 1999 he has been a professor at Princeton University. France made him Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists</span>

NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, is an American professional association dedicated to coverage of LGBTQ issues in the media. It is based in Washington, D.C., and the membership consists primarily of journalists, students, educators, and communications professionals. The organization was previously known as the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), but changed its name in 2013 to "NLGJA: The Association of LGBT Journalists" to reflect the diversity of the communities it represents. In 2016, it added a "Q", updating its name to "NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists". In 2023, it added a "+", updating its name to "NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Doty</span> American poet and memoirist (born 1953)

Mark Doty is an American poet and memoirist best known for his work My Alexandria. He was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008.

Martin Bauml Duberman is an American historian, biographer, playwright, and gay rights activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Herbert Lehman College in the Bronx, New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Essex Hemphill</span> American writer and activist (1957–1995)

Essex Hemphill was an openly gay American poet and activist. He is known for his contributions to the Washington, D.C. art scene in the 1980s, and for openly discussing the topics pertinent to the African-American gay community.

The Daily Beast is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. Founded in 2008, the website is owned by IAC Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Anderson-Minshall</span> American journalist (born 1968)

Diane Anderson-Minshall is an American journalist and author best known for writing about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender subjects. She is the first female CEO of Pride Media. She is also the editorial director of The Advocate and Chill magazines, the editor-in-chief of HIV Plus magazine, while still contributing editor to OutTraveler. Diane co-authored the 2014 memoir Queerly Beloved about her relationship with her husband Jacob Anderson-Minshall throughout his gender transition.

UNITY: Journalists for Diversity was an alliance of the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, the Native American Journalists Association. UNITY served as the umbrella organization under which the groups hold a joint convention. UNITY conventions were held in 1994 (Atlanta), 1999 (Seattle), 2004, 2008 (Chicago) and 2012.

<i>And the Band Played On</i> 1987 book by Randy Shilts

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic is a 1987 book by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts. The book chronicles the discovery and spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) with a special emphasis on government indifference and political infighting—specifically in the United States—to what was then perceived as a specifically gay disease. Shilts's premise is that AIDS was allowed to happen: while the disease is caused by a biological agent, incompetence and apathy toward those initially affected allowed its spread to become much worse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David France (writer)</span> American journalist and filmmaker (born 1959)

David France is an American investigative reporter, non-fiction author, and filmmaker. He is a former Newsweek senior editor, and has published in New York magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and others. France, who is gay, is best known for his investigative journalism on LGBTQ topics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Bronski</span> American academic and writer (born 1949)

Michael Bronski is an American academic and writer, best known for his 2011 book A Queer History of the United States. He has been involved with LGBT politics since 1969 as an activist and organizer. He has won numerous awards for LGBTQ activism and scholarship, including the prestigious Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. Bronski is a Professor of Practice in Media and Activism at Harvard University.

Jameson Currier is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, critic, journalist, editor, and publisher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Thrasher</span> American writer and editor

Steven William Thrasher is an American journalist and academic. In 2019, he became the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair of social justice in reporting and an assistant professor of journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. In 2012, he won the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Journalist of the Year award. His book The Viral Underclass was published in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark S. King</span> American HIV/AIDS activist, blogger, writer, and actor

Mark S. King is an American HIV/AIDS activist, blogger, writer, and actor. King tested positive for HIV in 1985 and became an HIV/AIDS activist soon after. In 2020, the Association of LGBTQ Journalists presented King with the Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for the LGBTQ Journalist of the Year. He is the creator of the video blog My Fabulous Disease, which won the 2020 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Blog. Out magazine named King to its 2020 Out100 list of LGBTQ+ influencers.

Victoria A. Brownworth is an American journalist, writer, and editor. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, she wrote numerous award-winning articles about AIDS in women, children, and people of color. She was the first person in the United States to write a column about lesbianism in a daily newspaper and host a lesbian radio show.

References

  1. "Philip M. Kaiser, 93; longtime U.S. diplomat," Los Angeles Times 26 May 2007.
  2. "Charles Kaiser: Author of The Gay Metropolis," Gay Today 3 Nov. 1997.
  3. http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_events/symposia/history_vid_archive/mccaughey.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  4. Lopate, Phillip. "Rapid Transit: How 'America's most despised minority' gained acceptance in record time," The New York Times 9 Nov. 1997.
  5. Kranzky, Kyle. "A Landmark Book on Gay History Has Been Updated and Re-Released for a New Generation," Los Angeles Magazine 23 Jul. 2019
  6. "The Colbert Report - Series | Comedy Central Official Site | CC.com". Colbertnation.com. 2016-09-30. Retrieved 2021-02-07.
  7. Turner, Mark. "The Gay Metropolis review: if we can survive Aids, we can survive Trump," The Guardian 18 Aug. 2019.
  8. Waxman, Olivia B. "Some People Think Stonewall Was Triggered by Judy Garland’s Funeral. Here’s Why Many Experts Disagree," Time 23 Jun. 2019.
  9. "Search Results". Archived from the original on 2008-10-11. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  10. "Charles Kaiser Archive - Columbia Journalism Review". Cjr.org . Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  11. "Full Court Press | the Hillman Foundation". Archived from the original on 2010-07-17. Retrieved 2010-07-26.
  12. Kaiser, Charles. "When The New York Times Came Out of the Closet," The New York Review of Books 25 Sept. 2012.
  13. 1 2 3 Kalb, Deborah. "Q&A with Charles Kaiser," Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb 16 Jun. 2015.
  14. Kirsch, Jonathan (2015-06-19). "Unraveling a long-suppressed mystery of French Nazi resistance". The Washington Post . Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  15. Rosbottom, Ronald C. (2015-06-16). "Paris's Secret Garden". Wsj.com. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  16. "'The Cost of Courage' profiles a heroic family of French Resistance fighters". CSMonitor.com. 2015-06-17. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  17. "Lambda Literary". Lambda Literary. 1998-07-14. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  18. "Paris Book Festival".
  19. "NLGJA Hall of Fame - NLGJA".