Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin
Thursday June 15, 2023
The Rev. Dr. Jim Mitulski will interview Joseph Plaster, Ph.D. on his newly-published book, Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin (Duke University Press, 2023). In Kids on the Street Joseph Plaster explores the informal support networks that enabled abandoned and runaway queer youth to survive in tenderloin districts across the United States. Plaster draws on archival, ethnographic, oral history, and public humanities research to outline the queer kinship networks, religious practices, performative storytelling, and migratory patterns that allowed these kids to foster social support and mutual aid. By highlighting a politics where the marginal position of street kids is the basis for a moral economy of reciprocity, Plaster excavates a history of queer life that has been overshadowed by major narratives of gay progress and pride.
Rev. Dr. Jim Mitulski is a pastor, activist, community organizer, and fundraiser. He has pastored churches in the United Church of Christ and the Metropolitan Community Churches. He served as the denominational Director of Development and Clergy Vocations for the MCC Churches and taught courses at the Pacific School of Religion and currently at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. He is currently pastor of the Congregational Church of Belmont (California).
Joseph Plaster, Ph.D. is Curator in Public Humanities and Director of the Winston Tabb Special Collections Research Center at Johns Hopkins University. His research and teaching combine archival, oral history, and public humanities methods to examine the world-making practices of marginalized publics in the United States, with a focus on intersections of gender, sexuality, and race. Learn more at https://www.josephplaster.com.
Tags
Author/editor | California | San Francisco | Youth