QUEERING the NARRATIVE: LIFE WRITING in the BRUCE MCKINNEY COLLECTION by Copyright 2012 Susan K. Thomas Submitted to the Graduat
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QUEERING THE NARRATIVE: LIFE WRITING IN THE BRUCE MCKINNEY COLLECTION By Copyright 2012 Susan K. Thomas Submitted to the graduate degree program in English and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Kathryn Conrad ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Maryemma Graham ________________________________ Dr. Giselle Anatol ________________________________ Dr. Elizabeth Birmingham ________________________________ Dr. Hannah Britton Date Defended: July 23, 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Susan K. Thomas certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: QUEERING THE NARRATIVE: LIFE WRITING IN THE BRUCE MCKINNEY COLLECTION ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Kathryn Conrad ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Maryemma Graham Date approved: July 23, 2012 ii Abstract This dissertation problematizes the definition of autobiography by considering the Bruce McKinney Collection, an archive at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, a communal autobiography of the lesbian and gay community of Kansas. While generally used as a research tool, I argue that the archive can also be a form of life writing, consisting of a narrative that moves between documents and items found within the collection. Collected by numerous people over the course of forty years, I present the Bruce McKinney Collection as a communal autobiography of lesbian and gay life in Kansas. The archive demonstrates the lesbian and gay community’s desire to acquire queer space and establish queer visibility in towns across Kansas. Through acts of resistance, whether taking legal action against a major university, proposing social changes through a city council, or by having sex in public spaces, the lesbian and gay community has reconfigured social space to accommodate their own community. In turn, the queer archive reflects the history of this change. Itself a queer space, the archive grants legitimacy to the lesbian and gay community simply by existing. It acts as a form of resistance as people have gathered and preserved the different documents that reflect lesbian and gay history. Through the resistant act of collecting lesbian and gay history, the lesbian and gay community of Kansas has created its own communal autobiography, specifically The Bruce McKinney Collection. iii To Michelle and J, for the never ending support And, of course, to Bruce, who saved everything. Thank you for trusting me. iv Acknowledgements There are a number of people who have stood behind this project and me from the very beginning. I would like to thank Dr. Maryemma Graham and Dr. Katie Conrad for their commitment. They have both pushed me to reach deep within myself, and never stopped believing that I would finally get there. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee, Dr. Giselle Anatol, Dr. Betsy Birmingham, and Dr. Hannah Britton. Thank you for your support, and for asking me the difficult questions. I would like to thank the staff at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, especially Sherry Williams, Miloche Kottman, Michael Readinger, Meredith Huff, Mary Ann Baker, Nancy Hollingsworth, and Toni Bressler. Thank you for your constant support. Working with you is a joy, both as a coworker and as a patron. Thanks to Tami Albin for bringing the Bruce McKinney Collection into the KSRL and for helping me see that this could be my project. In addition, I would like to thank the Dean of Libraries, Lorraine Harricombe, and Assistant Dean Mary Roach. Thank you for keeping me employed! Many thanks to the English Department at the University of Kansas, especially Lydia Ash, Robin Holladay, Lori Whitten, Dr. Sonya Lancaster, and Dr. Marta Caminero-Santangelo. I have had the most incredible support system throughout my graduate career, but none quite like I have had while working on my dissertation. There has always been someone to help me to keep my eye on the prize. Many thanks to Daryl Lynn, Cedric, Mary Beth, and Kristina. A big thank you to the PB crew and our Thursday night dinners, especially Michael, Tanya, Heather, and Kellee. Thank you to Keely and Monica for always believing in me and for opening their home to me on so many occasions. Huge hugs to Bill the Wilson for his love (and froyo!). Milton, you are amazing. I would have gone off the ledge a few times if it weren’t for you. Many thanks to Hannah and Bill (the cat, not the Wilson). Your unconditional love moves me through life! Of course, I could not have done this without the support of my family. Mom, I am graduating! A huge thanks to the Sis and J. Thanks for pushing me, even when I did NOT want to be pushed! My life changed on February 19, 2009 when I began to process the Bruce McKinney Collection. At that time, I had no idea how significantly the collection would affect my life. Bruce, I am so thankful to know you. Thank you for “hoarding” (your word, not mine!). v Table of Contents Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………….…iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………v Introduction. Narrating Their Own Lives: The Archive as the Autobiography of Lesbian and Gay Kansans…..……………………………………………………………………………..................1 Chapter 1. Finding the Method in the Madness, Or, Everything in the Box Can Go…………....19 Chapter 2. “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are”: Establishing Queer Space and Creating Queer Visibility in Kansas …………………………………………………………………..…..36 Chapter 3. “I’m a Self-Proclaimed Hoarder”: From Collecting to Communal Autobiography Through the Space of the Archive ……………………………………………………………....63 Chapter 4. Resisting the Rules of Order: My Unconventional Role in the Archival Narrative…………………………………………………………………………………….…...93 Appendix A. Human Testing Approval letter from the University of Kansas IRB board, consent form, and interview questions ………………………………………………………………….110 Appendix B. The Bruce McKinney Collection EAD Record ………………………………….118 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………300 vi Introduction. Narrating Their Own Lives: The Archive as the Autobiography of Lesbian and Gay Kansans The Stories in the Archive In the introduction to Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions and the Writing of History, Antoinette Burton writes, “In the end, the burden of this collection [of essays] is not to show that archives tell stories but rather to illustrate that archives are always already stories.”1 In this statement, Burton emphasizes that the researchers do not create stories from archival research, but that the stories already exist within the archives; the researcher needs to reevaluate how s/he has been reading and interpreting the archive.2 It falls upon the researcher to realize that these documents are not merely research tools, but stories themselves. One box can contain several narratives that may at times intertwine or may remain completely separate, depending on the documents, their ordering, and the reader’s understanding of the archival text. An entire collection may contain the life story of a single, or the narrative of an entire community. It occurred to me while processing the Bruce McKinney Collection at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, that I could do both: follow Bruce McKinney’s life story through the different documents in the collection and capture the stories of numerous other people in the Kansas gay and lesbian community.3 The narrative is 1 Burton 20. 2 I am defining the archive as a group of documents and/or items representing a family, group of people, business, etc. An archive may also be a building or space that houses historical documents (i.e. archives), often for private or public use. 3 Bruce McKinney is the donor and original archivist of the Bruce McKinney Collection, an archive that spans more than 40 years and collected in Wichita, Kansas. 1 queered within the archive to create an autobiographical text, differing from the traditional form of autobiography in that the narrative moves from document to document, requiring an active role from the reader who must at times navigate from one box to the next to understand the entire story. In this dissertation I am defining queer as being divergent from the societal norm, which I will discuss more extensively later in the introduction. The various documents in the Bruce McKinney Collection represent different gay and lesbian communities throughout Kansas, including, but not limited to Wichita, Topeka, Lawrence, and Hays. Throughout the archive, different men and women’s names appear again and again, making it possible to track their activities between social events, organization involvement, and community activism. Rob Gutzman, Steve Wheeler, Dale Schultz, Kristi Parker, and numerous other names all occur throughout the archival narrative, making them more than just secondary characters in Bruce McKinney’s autobiography, but main characters in their own life stories. While differing in form from the traditional text, the archive functions as an autobiographical narrative. I was already aware that the Bruce McKinney Collection contained the papers of two other men, Rob Gutzman and Steve Wheeler. However, speaking with Bruce McKinney confirmed the composite nature of the collection; multiple people who had passed documents and items along to him to include in the archive. If McKinney learned that friends were taking a trip, he would ask them to pick