Nationality Canadian Period 1970s-present | Name Thomas Waugh Role Critic | |
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Occupation Academic, Author, Critic, Programmer, Activist Notable works Show Us Life: Towards a History and Aesthetics of the Committed Documentary
Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall
The Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas Movies Blue Shirt Green Tie, Steam is Steam Nominations Lambda Literary Award for Photography/Visual Arts, Lambda Literary Award for Visual Arts People also search for David L. Chapman, Scott MacKenzie Books Lust Unearthed: Vintage G, Out/Lines: Gay Undergro, Hard to Imagine: Gay Male, The Right to Play Oneself, The Romance of Transg | ||
Mani Kaul - Interview with Thomas Waugh
Thomas Waugh is a Canadian critic, programmer, lecturer, author, actor, and activist, best known for his extensive work on documentary film and eroticism in the history of LGBT cinema and art. A professor at Concordia University, he teaches in the department of film studies and holds a research chair in documentary film and sexual representation.
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A graduate of Columbia University, he wrote film criticism and history articles for publications such as Jump Cut and The Body Politic before publishing his first book, Show Us Life: Towards a History and Aesthetics of the Committed Documentary, in 1984.
His 1996 book, Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall, took 13 years to research and write. Its release was delayed eight full months after its initial planned publication date, due to difficulty finding a printer willing to handle the book's sexually explicit homoerotic imagery.
He is a two-time Lambda Literary Award nominee, garnering nominations in the Visual Arts category at the 15th Lambda Literary Awards in 2003 for Out/Lines: Underground Gay Graphics From Before Stonewall, and at the 17th Lambda Literary Awards in 2005 for Lust Unearthed: Vintage Gay Graphics from the DuBek Collection.
Waugh has also served on the board of Cinema Politica, has been active with the Quebec Gay Archives, and is coeditor with Matthew Hays of the Queer Film Classics series of monographs on LGBT film, published by Arsenal Pulp Press. In 2013 Waugh, Ryan Conrad and Cinema Politica raised funds on Indiegogo to produce and distribute a documentary film about the Russian LGBT organization Children-404.
In 2015, Waugh and filmmaker Kim Simard launched the Queer Media Database, an online project to collect and publish information about LGBT films made in Canada and the personalities involved in their creation. The project was based in part on his 2006 book The Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas.