Art Blake

Media & Culture; Politics & Policy

DepartmentHistory (Toronto Metropolitan University)

Areas of ExpertiseArchives and Collections; Cultural Studies; History; Identities (e.g., Class, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Ability, Sexuality, etc.) and Identity Politics; Sexuality Studies; Transgender Studies; Transgender History

https://www.torontomu.ca/history/about-us/faculty-and-staff/faculty/blake-art/

My current research examines the lives and communication networks of members of the Beaumont Society, formed in the UK in 1966, as a confidential support network for people who identified, in the language and context of the time, as "heterosexual male crossdressers." In fact, the Beaumont Society members included transgender and "transsexual" people, not all of whom were heterosexual.

Recent publications:

Blake, A. M. (2019). Radio, race, and audible difference in post-1945 America: The citizens band. Palgrave Macmillan.

Blake, A. (2018). Re-Dressing Race and Gender: The Performance and Politics of Eldridge Cleaver’s Pants. Fashion Studies, 1(1), 1–37.

Sample of supervised ComCult projects:

2022 - Pauline Nguyen; MA Project-Paper; Spaces of Care / Photography as Queer Racialized Affective Archives: A Collaborative Project

2020 - Amanda Piche; Dissertation: The Role of Canadian National Print Media in Fostering Positive Public Opinion Towards the Legislation of Same-Sex Marriage in Canada

2019 - Alison Aird; Major Research Paper: Broken Record: Madness and Epistemological Agency

ComCult Teaching Activities

CC 8849 Selected Topics in Politics and Policy - Transgender Studies

CC 8905 MA Research Specialization and Practice

CC 8982 The Body and The Culture of Modernity

CC 8839 Sound Studies