The Center for the Advancement of the Humanities (CfAH) will host virtual Humanities Research Colloquium on Thursday, Dec. 2, at 4 p.m. via Teams.
Dr. Alison Efford, associate professor of history, will give a talk titled “Queering Nineteenth-Century Romantic Friendship: Mathilde Franziska Anneke and Mary Booth, 1859-1865.”
German American feminist Mathilde Franziska Anneke and Milwaukee abolitionist Mary Booth enjoyed an intense, cohabiting relationship from 1859 to 1865. Although Anneke and Booth’s romantic friendship was unique, it offers a window into a type of bond that found social sanction.
In this talk, Dr. Efford discusses her collaboration with Dr. Viktorija Bilic, associate professor of translation & interpreting studies at UW-Milwaukee, to translate and publish Anneke’s extraordinary letters. She argues for a queer interpretation of romantic friendship that resists the categories of lesbian or straight, sexual or platonic and she suggests the lesson this form of relationship might hold for our own times.
Everyone is welcome to attend. To obtain the Teams meeting link, contact Jorge Montiel, CfAH graduate assistant.
