The 2019-2020 Workshop in the History of Material Texts will be welcoming John Anderies (William Way LGBT Community Center) for a talk entitled "On Developing an Exhibition on the Technologies of (Queer) Porn." John writes:
 
The John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives at William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia presents between three and four archival exhibitions each year. An idea we've been exploring is how we might develop and present an exhibition on the technologies of queer pornography. It might be said that the history of pornography, like many genres, is the history of the technologies by which it has been created, published, distributed, and consumed. This presentation will look at some of the technologies or physical mechanisms used to consume queer pornography in the 20th century, including erotica and other written forms, physique photography/magazines, slides and stereoview slides, film/video, and an array of ephemera such as coloring books, playing cards, and calendars. Along the way, we'll look at questions of censorship, access, collecting, and representation, as well as the question of how to build in consent in an exhibition of explicit words and images.
 
John Anderies is the Director of the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives at the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—one of the country's leading LGBTQ archives. He has also worked as a processing archivist at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania, and as Head of Special Collections at Haverford College. John has served as a Principal Investigator on numerous library and archives grants, including those from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Park Services, Pennsylvania Library Services and Technology Act, Council on Library and Information Resources, Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and Pennsylvania Council for the Arts. He is program co-chair of the biennial Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, is a board member of the Friends Historical Association, and is an organizer of the Pennsylvania LGBT History Network. John holds degrees from Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music (BM), Case Western Reserve University (MA), and Indiana University (MLS). Born and raised in Western Colorado and educated in the Midwest, John is proud to have called Philadelphia home for almost 20 years. He lives in Old City with his partner, Jimmy.