Princeton historian Margot Canaday will give the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics’ annual Margaret Hallock Lecture on Feb. 16.

The talk will focus on her new book, “Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America,” which explores the experiences of sexual minorities in the American workforce during the second half of the 20th century. The public lecture will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Room 110, Knight Law Center. It will be followed by “Your queer (and/or gender-diverse) career: a discussion and Q&A for students” at 6:15 p.m. in Room 141, Knight Law Center.

“The pandemic has made many of us aware that we are living through revolutionary changes in the organization of labor as well as a dramatic reconsideration of what work means-, or could mean, for all of us who have jobs,” said Ellen Herman, co-director of the Wayne Morse Center. “Margot Canaday’s pioneering new book on the history of LGBT workers in the United States pokes holes in the presumption that workplaces have been ‘straight’ places and that sexuality is largely irrelevant to the labor market and the economy. We know that her talk will reveal original dimensions of both capitalism and the queer past.”

Canaday is a legal and political historian who studies gender and sexuality in modern America. She has received fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Princeton University Society of Fellows, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. 

The talk is part of the Wayne Morse Center’s 2022-23 theme of inquiry, Making Work Work. It is co-sponsored by the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society; Department of History; Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Labor Education and Research Center; and United Academics Pride Caucus.