Alan Bray
Template:About Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writer Alan Bray (13 October 1948 – 25 November 2001) was a British historian and gay rights activist. He was a Roman Catholic and had a particular interest in Christianity's relationship to homosexuality.
Early life
Bray was born in Hunslet, Leeds, to a working-class family.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His mother died when he was 12, an event that profoundly affected his relationships.<ref name=obit>Template:Cite news</ref> He attended Leeds Central High School, where he met his lifelong friend Graham Wilson. He attended Bangor University and spent a year at an Anglican seminary before beginning a career in civil service.
Gay rights activism
He became involved with the Gay Liberation Front in the 1970s and actively campaigned for gay rights.<ref name=obit /> His interest in sexual politics influenced his work on history, which culminated in two books. His groundbreaking book Homosexuality in Renaissance England was published in 1982. His second book, The Friend, was published posthumously after his death from heart failure in 2001.
Legacy
The Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, of which Bray was a member, instituted a series of Alan Bray Memorial Lectures on Catholic theology and homosexuality. British historians Michael Hunter, Miri Rubin, and Laura Gowing co-edited the book Love, Friendship and Faith in Europe, 1300–1800 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), a collection of essays inspired by Bray's idea of finding some universal component of homosexuality within the experiences of intimacy and friendship without "locating a discourse that identifies persons as homosexual."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Nick Rumens' Queer Company: The Role and Meaning of Friendship in Gay Men's Work Lives (Ashgate, 2011), is also inspired by Alan Bray's scholarship.<ref>Nick Rumens, Queer Company: The Role and Meaning of Friendship in Gay Men's Work Lives, Ashgate, 2011, p. 29</ref> Valerie Traub (Thinking Sex with the Early Moderns) is amongst many subsequent LGBTQ scholars who have engaged with and been inspired by Bray's scholarship.
Bibliography
- Homosexuality in Renaissance England (Gay Men's Press, 1982)
- The Friend (University of Chicago Press, 2002)
- The Clandestine Reformer: A Study Of The Rayner Scrutinies (1988)