Shows
Absolute UnitsQueer Rural Lives: Love Letters and Farm Papers (with Tim Jerrome)In our last episode, Tim Jerrome (now, University of Brighton; previously, The MERL) shared with Joe and Ollie how he's using The MERL archives to research queer lives and same-sex relationships in England's rural past.Today, Tim shares examples of the stories and relationships that he's been able to trace so far. We talk about the challenges of piecing together people's lives from fragmentary and coded evidence, the difficulties of applying categories to relationships that far predate modern terminology, and the issues of encountering problematic queer relationships and representing them for modern audiences.Please...
2025-10-3037 minAbsolute UnitsQueer Rural Lives: Searching the Archives (with Tim Jerrome)Queer histories of England have predominantly focused on the country's urban centres and cities - especially London. Yet queer and same-sex relationships have always existed throughout English life. Rural England is no exception.In the first of two podcasts, Joe and Ollie welcome onto Absolute Units former MERL colleague Tim Jerrome (University of Brighton), whose PhD explores the history of same-sex relationships in rural England.Learn about the challenges of finding queer histories in farm archives, the issues of archivist objectivity, and how museums can develop their practices to better surface and represent stories and...
2025-10-1639 min