Thomas Waugh

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Thomas Waugh
Born1948 (age 74–75)
London, Ontario, Canada
OccupationAcademic, Author, Critic, Programmer, Activist
Period1970s-present
Notable worksShow Us Life: Towards a History and Aesthetics of the Committed Documentary

Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall
The Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas

Contents

Conscience of Cinema: The Work of Joris Ivens, 1912-1989

Thomas Waugh is a Canadian critic, lecturer, author, actor, and activist, [1] [2] [3] best known for his extensive work on documentary film and eroticism in the history of LGBT cinema and art. [4] A professor emeritus at Concordia University, [5] he taught 41 years in the film studies program of the School of Cinema and held a research chair in documentary film and sexual representation. He was also the director of the Concordia HIV/AIDS Project, 1993-2017, a program providing a platform for research and conversations involving HIV/AIDS in the Montréal area. [6]

Career

A graduate of Columbia University, Waugh wrote film criticism and history articles for publications such as Jump Cut and The Body Politic before publishing his first book, Show Us Life: Towards a History and Aesthetics of the Committed Documentary, in 1984.

His 1996 book, Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall, took 13 years to research and write. [7] Its release was delayed eight full months after its initial planned publication date, due to difficulty finding a printer willing to handle the book's sexually explicit homoerotic imagery. [8]

He is a two-time Lambda Literary Award nominee, garnering nominations in the Visual Arts category at the 15th Lambda Literary Awards in 2003 for Out/Lines: Underground Gay Graphics From Before Stonewall, [9] and at the 17th Lambda Literary Awards in 2005 for Lust Unearthed: Vintage Gay Graphics from the DuBek Collection. [10] He is also the recipient of the SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) Katherine Singer Kovács Book Award for The Conscience of Cinema: The Work of Joris Ivens, 1912-1989.

Waugh has also served on the board of Cinema Politica, [11] has been active with the Quebec Gay Archives, [12] and is coeditor with Matthew Hays of the Queer Film Classics series of 19 monographs on LGBT film, published by Arsenal Pulp Press. [13] In 2013 Waugh, Ryan Conrad and Cinema Politica raised funds on Indiegogo to produce and distribute a documentary film about the Russian LGBT organization Children-404. [14]

In 2010, Waugh and filmmaker Kim Simard launched the Queer Media Database Canada-Québec, an online database project to collect and publish information about LGBT films and videos made in Canada and the personalities involved in their creation. [15] The project was based in part on his 2006 book The Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas.

Works

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References

  1. ↑ |name=xtra>Daniel Allen Cox
  2. ↑ Waugh, Thomas (8 August 2019). "My Coming Out: 'I'm Afraid This Letter Is Going To Cause You Both A Lot Of Pain". Montreal Gazette.
  3. ↑ "Naked Lunch: An interview with Thomas Waugh". Xtra! , January 5, 2010.
  4. ↑ "Naked Lunch: An interview with Thomas Waugh". Xtra! , January 5, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Filling the void of LGBT cultural amnesia; Concordia profs at the helm of book series revisiting 21 influential movies". Montreal Gazette , January 25, 2012.
  6. ↑ Braganza, Chantal (January 14, 2015). "The evolution of porn studies". University Affairs. Retrieved March 11, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Behind shocking gay photos, this is a serious study". Edmonton Journal , November 30, 1996.
  8. ↑ "Gay history fit to print: Book slated for sale by early November". The Globe and Mail , September 26, 1996.
  9. ↑ "15th Lambda Literary Awards". Lambda Literary Foundation, July 9, 2003.
  10. ↑ "17th Lambda Literary Awards". Lambda Literary Foundation, July 9, 2005.
  11. ↑ "Cinema should encourage debate". National Post , March 19, 2010.
  12. ↑ "Making things perfectly queer". Concordia News, March 1, 2013.
  13. ↑ "Queer Film Classics Film Book Series ed. by Thomas Waugh, Matthew Hays (review)". Journal of Film and Video (Volume 66, Number 2), Summer 2014. pp. 48-50.
  14. ↑ "Russian film about LGBTQ youth seeks funds". Windy City Times , November 5, 2013.
  15. ↑ "Online database of queer Canadian movies launching at Toronto Pride". The Globe and Mail , June 24, 2015.
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