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June 2006

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Mass same-sex wedding ceremony and U of M Libraries GLBT history collection to be big part of Pride Festival this weekend
June 21 , 2006

Same-sex couples take part in wedding ceremonies

Same-sex couples will gather at the Twin Cities GLBT Pride Festival this weekend for both a mass wedding ceremony and individual ceremonies. University of Minnesota sociology professor Kathleen Hull is available to speak about why wedding ceremonies are important to same-sex couples. “In the current political context, same-sex wedding ceremonies send an important symbolic message. Many people want their relationships to be taken seriously,” she said. “Same-sex wedding ceremonies represent an effort to create a kind of legality outside official law, a way to create law when there isn’t any,” Hull says. Hull’s new book, “Same-Sex Marriage: The Cultural Politics of Love and Law,” explores what marriage means to gays and lesbians in the United States.

U of M special collection tracks once invisible GLBT history

Imagine the history of a community of people never or rarely mentioned in history books. Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) people and their impact on society have long been invisible, but a University of Minnesota Libraries special collection is an international leader in preserving GLBT history. With the Twin Cities’ GLBT Pride Festival this weekend, it’s the perfect time to do a story about the world-renown Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Studies. Exhibits featuring parts of the collection will be a on display in the History Pavilion in Loring Park, Minneapolis Friday and Saturday June 24 and 25. Tretter is available for interviews about GLBT history and the importance of preserving it.
Tretter just returned from a privately-funded trip to attend the first-ever Moscow Pride and to Germany where he acquired rare pieces for the collection. One piece is volume six of “Der Eigene,” the first ongoing homosexual publication in the world. A GLBT history exhibit from the Tretter Collection was on display at Moscow Pride and it will now travel to Pride events in Warsaw, Stockholm and Jerusalem.

To interview Hull or Tretter, contact Patty Mattern, University News Service, (612) 625-2801.

Chairs, chairs everywhere, but don’t sit down
June 14 , 2006

The desire to sit tempts visitors as they enter the University of Minnesota Goldstein Museum of Design, but no sitting is allowed. The chairs are on display for the exhibition “The Chair: 125 Years of Sitting” until Sept. 2. The exhibit gives reporters the opportunity to do a fun or creative story about the piece of furniture many people spend much of their time sitting on.

The exhibition showcases chairs from the late 19th century through the 20th century. Many designers who otherwise focused on architecture have found the chair to be a very attractive form to design. And, chair designers take a lot into account when making the chairs. One chair on display, a Chippendale Corner Chair, which was made in about 1770, allowed people to sit comfortably without removing their swords.

While visitors don't get to sit in the chairs, one person did get that chance to add a unique twist to the exhibit. The department of Design, Housing and Apparel's human dimensioning lab completed scans of a person sitting in some of the chairs to allow visitors to see how bodies are held in the chair and how chairs are designed for different functions. The scan of the F.P.E. (Fantastic, Plastic, Elastic) chair, reveals the sitter in an uncomfortable position with no room to shift. F.P.E. was also designed for a taller person positioning the sitter's feet off the floor.

To do a story about this exhibit and to interview Goldstein Director Lin Nelson-Mayson, contact Patty Mattern, University News Service, (612) 624-2801.

50th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s scandalous TV performance
June 1 , 2006

June 5th marks the 50th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s controversial performance on the Milton Berle Show. During that performance in 1956, the young Elvis shook and shimmied his hips to “Hound Dog” in ways that launched a huge national controversy in what was then a more mild-mannered nation.

Some people simply weren’t ready for what they saw, says Gil Rodman, associate professor of communication studies at the U of M. “The Milton Berle show was the first where Elvis did not play guitar thus hiding his hips. In the performance, he shakes and shimmies, humps the microphone and nearly does a crotch grab. By 1956 standards, this was unbelievable. This was a time when Lucy and Desi slept in separate beds on their TV show even though they were married in real life and you couldn’t say the “p-word” (pregnant) on TV. For Elvis to move the way he did at that moment was scandalous.”

As this anniversary approaches, it is an opportune time to do a story about how this was a pivotal moment in American culture and a key point in the history of rock and roll music. It also offers a good chance to compare what rock stars do today to what Elvis did then or how Elvis’ impact went beyond music and contributed to a shift in Americans’ attitudes. University of Minnesota pop culture and Elvis expert Gil Rodman can provide a pop culture scholar’s insight for all such stories. Rodman wrote the book “Elvis After Elvis.”

To interview Rodman, contact Patty Mattern, University News Service, (612) 624-2801.