Aaron Lecklider

Aaron Lecklider's research focuses on gender and sexuality, class, and race in twentieth-century American culture. His first book studied how Americans who were not part of the traditional intellectual class negotiated the complicated politics of intelligence within mass culture. As changes in work, leisure, and domestic life accelerated in the early decades of the twentieth-century, representions of brainpower in popular culture precipitated social transformation that particularly impacted women, immigrants, and African Americans. Lecklider is continuing to study cultural politics in working-class communities, this time examining the relationship between homosexuality and the Left in American culture between 1920 and 1960. Particularly emphasizing the significance of literary works and artistic production for articulating sexual politics, Lecklider's book project uncovers how radical sexuality was envisioned by artists and activists decades before the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Lecklider also brings to the department an interest in contemporary art and visual culture: in February 2013 he curated an exhibit, Lifelines: Recent Work by Avram Finkelstein, that featured contemporary paintings and sculpture by an important founding member of Gran Fury and ACT UP.