Brief Encounters - 25 Years of Writing Histories of Gay Men

Stephen Bourne presents an informative and engaging overview of his work as a historian of gay men’s lives. His books include Brief Encounters (1996), a survey of lesbians and gays in British cinema; the acclaimed Fighting Proud (2017), which focusses on gay men’s lives in the two world wars; and Playing Gay in the Golden Age of British Television (2019), which Russell T Davies describes as a ‘masterpiece’.

He has also been writing Black British history books since 1991 for which the Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo has named Stephen a ‘hero of our history.’ For more information about Stephen go to www.stephenbourne.co.uk

Short summaries of books: 

Brief Encounters (Bloomsbury, 1996) 

Prejudice and misconception mean that lesbian and gay representation in British cinema has largely escaped the attention of critics and historians. Informative and entertaining, Brief Encounters reveals a cinema more varied, vital and sensuous than we could ever have imagined. 

Fighting Proud (Bloomsbury, 2017) 

In this astonishing new history of wartime Britain, Stephen Bourne unearths the fascinating stories of the gay men who served in the armed forces and at home, and brings to light the great unheralded contribution they made to the war effort.  

Playing Gay in the Golden Age of British Television (The History Press, 2019) 

Playing Gay looks at gay male representation on and off the small screen – from the programmes that hinted at homoeroticism to Mary Whitehouse’s Clean Up TV campaign, and The Naked Civil Servant to the birth of Channel 4 as an exciting ‘alternative’ television channel. ‘Brilliantly researched and focused’, says Lord Michael Cashman CBE.