The James Robert Brudner Memorial Prize and Lecture at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

celebrates lifetime accomplishment and scholarly contributions in the field of

LGBT Studies Queer studies, sexual diversity studies, or LGBT studies is the education of topics relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender dysphoria, asexual, queer, questioning, inter ...

. It is bestowed annually by the Committee for LGBT Studies at Yale University. Recipients receive a cash prize and give a public lecture on the Yale campus in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

as well as a second lecture in New York City.

Overview

The prize is named for city planner, musician, and photographer James Brudner (1961-1998), a member of the

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

class of 1983 and

Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School (pronounced ), commonly referred to among its students as Stuy (pronounced ), is a State school, public university-preparatory school, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school ...

Class of 1979. Brudner died of

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

-related illness on September 18, 1998. Through his will he established the prize and lecture as "a perpetual annual prize for scholarship in the history, culture, anthropology, biology, etiology, or literature of

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

men and

lesbians A lesbian is a homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with fem ...

or related fields, or for advancing the understanding of

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...

as a phenomenon, or the tolerance of gay men and lesbians in society." James Robert Brudner '83 was an AIDS activist, urban planner, journalist, and photographer. A man of wit and compassion, outsized knowledge and curiosity, Jim valued both academic inquiry and direct action. He spent 12 years as a policy analyst for the City of New York. He also earned an MA in journalism from New York University and wrote for various publications on gay- and AIDS-related topics. Jim became a member of ACT UP, the Treatment Action Group, and other organizations after the death of his twin brother, Eric, of AIDS in 1987. He worked on treatment and prevention issues with the National Institutes of Health, pharmaceutical corporations, and federal agencies. In his final years he devoted much of his time to traveling the back roads of rural America with a camera. La Mama Gallery in New York mounted an exhibition of his photographs in 1997. Jim died of AIDS-related illness on September 18, 1998 at the age of 37.

Winners

* 2019-2020 - Siddhartha Gautam (posthumously), in recognition of his work on behalf of LGBT rights and welfare in India. * 2018-2019 - Bill T. Jones, choreographer, director, author and dancer * 2017-2018 -

Carolyn Dinshaw Carolyn Dinshaw is an American academic and author, who has specialised in issues of gender and sexuality in the medieval context. Education and career Dinshaw was born to an Indian father, Dudley Dinshaw a Parsi from Lucknow and an American mothe ...

, scholar of gender and sexuality in the medieval context *2016-2017 -

Isaac Julien Sir Isaac Julien (born 21 February 1960Annette Kuhn"Julien, Isaac (1960–)" BFI Screen Online.) is a British installation artist, filmmaker, and distinguished professor of the arts at UC Santa Cruz. Early life Julien was born in the East End ...

, artist and film director *2015-2016 -

Susan Stryker Susan O'Neal Stryker (born 1961) is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Stu ...

, academic, author, filmmaker * 2014-2015 -

Richard Dyer Richard Dyer (born 1945) is an English academic who held a professorship in the Department of Film Studies at King's College London. Specialising in cinema (particularly Italian cinema), queer theory, and the relationship between entertainment ...

, film studies scholar * 2013-2014 -

Cherríe Moraga Cherríe Moraga (born September 25, 1952) is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English. Moraga is also a founding m ...

, Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright * 2012-2013 -

Samuel R. Delany Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (, ) (born April 1, 1942), is an American author and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays (on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society). His ...

, science-fiction author and English literature scholar * 2011-2012 -

David M. Halperin David M. Halperin (born April 2, 1952) is an American theorist in the fields of gender studies, queer theory, critical theory, material culture and visual culture. He is the cofounder of '' GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies'', and autho ...

, classicist and English literature scholar * 2010-2011 -

Mary Bonauto Mary L. Bonauto (born June 8, 1961) is an American lawyer and civil rights advocate who has worked to eradicate discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and has been referred to by US Representative Barney Frank as "our Thu ...

, attorney and civil rights advocate * 2009-2010 -

Edwin Cameron Edwin Cameron SCOB (born 15 February 1953 in Pretoria) is a retired judge who served as a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He is well known for his HIV/AIDS and gay-rights activism and was hailed by Nelson Mandela as "one ...

, human rights lawyer and justice of South Africa Constitutional Court * 2008-2009 -

Cathy J. Cohen Cathy J. Cohen (born 1962) is an American political scientist, author, feminist, and social activist, whose work has focused on the African-American experience in politics from a perspective which is underlined by intersectionality. She is curren ...

, political scientist * 2008 -

Didier Eribon Didier Eribon (born 10 July 1953) is a French author and philosopher, and a historian of French intellectual life. He lives in Paris. Life Didier Eribon was born in Reims into a working-class family. He was the first in his family to finish ...

, philosopher (Eribon returned the prize in 2011: see his letter "I Return the Brudner Prize" on his personal homepage).{{cite web, url=http://didiereribon.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-return-brudner-prize.html , title=Site personnel de Didier Eribon: I RETURN THE BRUDNER PRIZE , publisher=Didiereribon.blogspot.com , date= , accessdate=2013-03-27 * 2007 -

B. Ruby Rich B. Ruby Rich is an American scholar; critic of independent, Latin American, documentary, feminist, and queer films; and a professor emerita of Film & Digital Media and Social Documentation at UC Santa Cruz. Among her many contributions, she is ...

, critic * 2006 - Matthew Coles, Director,

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

Gay and Lesbian Rights Project * 2005 -

John D'Emilio John D'Emilio (born 1948) is a professor emeritus of history and of women's and gender studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He taught at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He earned his B.A. from Columbia College and Ph ...

, historian * 2004 -

Judith Butler Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler ...

, philosopher * 2003 -

Jonathan Ned Katz Jonathan Ned Katz (born 1938) is an American historian of human sexuality who has focused on same-sex attraction and changes in the social organization of sexuality over time. His works focus on the idea, rooted in social constructionism, that t ...

, historian * 2002 -

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (; May 2, 1950 – April 12, 2009) was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory ( queer studies), and critical theory. Sedgwick published several books considered groundbreaking in the fiel ...

, English literature scholar * 2001 -

Lillian Faderman Lillian Faderman (born July 18, 1940) is an American historian whose books on lesbian history and LGBT history have earned critical praise and awards. ''The New York Times'' named three of her books on its "Notable Books of the Year" list. In addi ...

, English literature scholar * 2000 -

George Chauncey George Chauncey (born 1954) is a professor of history at Columbia University. He is best known as the author of '' Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940'' (1994). Life and works Chauncey re ...

, historian

References

* Event program, 2006 Brudner Prize Lecture, Yale University, April 2006

External links

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies (LGBTS) at Yale University
LGBT studies LGBT-related awards Awards established in 2000 Awards and prizes of Yale University