Audio from the session: Teenage Years.
To set the scene, Chrys Jones and her friend Aleisha Parkinson give a performance of I Am Sure, which gives a sense of the cliff-edge intensity of LGBTQI teenage years.
Historian Chris Brickell, best known for his award-winning book Mates and Lovers, talks about teenagers in New Zealand history, and explores social pressures on queer youth, but also the complexities of experience and identity. Then Stevan Eldred-Grigg reflects on his own personal history as a teenager in the 1960s and how the meaning of his queer life was filtered through novels, poetry, comics, radio, cinema and television, as well as the wider society and the family. Does a look back at our past help us understand the pressures and possibilities felt by today's young New Zealanders? The session is chaired by Peter Wells.
A special thank you to the organisers and participants for allowing us to record this event.
Summary
The "Teenage Years - Same Same But Different writers festival" event held at Auckland University of Technology on February 13, 2016, focused on teenage experiences across different eras, ranging from the 1880s through to the 2010s. This 59-minute recording features a panel comprising academics and writers, Chris Brickell, Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Chrys Jones, Aleisha Parkinson, and chaired by author Peter Wells.
The session began with an acknowledgment of the teenage years' transformative and turbulent nature, characterized by the newfound acknowledgement of life's injustices and pretensions. Associate Professor Chris Brickell, Gender Studies coordinator at the University of Otago, and author Stevan Eldred-Grigg, who've authored insightful works exploring both fictional and historical landscapes, were introduced.
A poignant performance by Chris and Aleisha involved a narrative poem that expressed moments of adolescent love, identity, the struggle for self-acceptance, and the realities of being queer. The poem detailed a lesbian's unwanted attention from a straight male, the societal stigmas associated with homosexuality, and the internal conflict undergone in the process of acknowledging and accepting one's sexual orientation.
Chris Brickell discussed their research on the history of adolescence in New Zealand. They presented three historical case studies: Fred Gibbs from the 1880s, who left diaries indicating their emotional world and potential same-sex attractions in a time when such subjects were not publicly discussed; James Courage, a Canterbury writer from the 1920s who wrote about their struggles with masculinity and same-sex desire; and Shirley Alberton, a female student in the 1930s whose diaries reflect no interest in boys but intense affection for two women. These narratives highlighted the social and emotional landscapes that young people navigated, shedding light on friendships, schooling as a backdrop for emotional life, and changing societal ideas around sexuality.
Stevan Eldred-Grigg took the stage to recount the turbulent 1960s, a period that saw the flourishing of sexual revolutions and open discussions about sexual behaviors that were previously private matters. They discussed their own experiences as a queer youth navigating family dynamics, school life, and cultural attitudes in Christchurch. Grigg articulated the nuanced tolerance for queer individuals within informal cultures, yet they also depicted the strain of living in a society that still harbored prejudice and the pain of their own suicidal struggles.
This summary is created using Generative AI. Although it is based on the recording's transcription, it may contain errors or omissions. Click here to learn more about how this summary was created.
Tags
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Tags (computer generated)
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