Queer History / Queer Memory: The Case of Alan Turing

TLDR: This article used the case of Alan Turing to unpick the epistemological consequences of conceptualizing practices in oppositional terms, a tendency pervasive among historians and queer specialists alike, revealing the paralyzing effects of polarization but also, and perhaps more urgently, the paramount importance in forging any number of pathways in creating queer narratives of pastness, including the unmaking of history.

Abstract: If we are serious about producing knowledge of the past in all its complexity—that is, as something we think that we know already as well as pastness in all its radical strangeness—it is vital to grasp the epistemological consequences in conceptualizing practices in oppositional terms, a tendency pervasive among historians and queer specialists alike. Using the case of Alan Turing to unpick this oppositional logic reveals the paralyzing effects of polarization but also, and perhaps more urgently, the paramount importance in forging any number of pathways in creating queer narratives of pastness, including the unmaking of history. Accounting for the messiness and complexity of our movements through the labyrinth of history and memory calls for recognizing the boundaries of praxis as delineated and mutable, conflicting and intertwined.