Libraries as Communities of Desire
Even after a writer is gone, their personal library reveals to us what the writer loved, what they found beautiful. As the critic Dave Hickey wrote, “Beauty is not the product of communities. It creates communities. Communities of desire, if you wish.” Such a community of desire can exist silently in the books a writer collects. Isherwood’s library, housed at The Huntington, is secure and precious, but queer libraries are all too often lost. This talk will look at Isherwood’s personal library and link it to the fate of Gary Indiana’s library, destroyed just last year in the Altadena fires. What is threatened when personal libraries are imperiled, whether by climate catastrophe or by political climate?
This is the Isherwood-Bachardy Lecture and is part of The Huntington Research 2025-2026 "Active in the Archive" lecture series.
Know Before You Go
- A post-lecture reception will take place in front of the lecture hall at the Rose Hills Foundation Garden Court at 7 p.m.
- Doors to the lecture hall will open at 5:30 p.m.
- If you are visiting the gardens during the day and plan to stay for the lecture, please note that all guests must clear the grounds when The Huntington closes at 5 p.m.
Top image: Gyula Wanyerka Komjati, Sleeping shepherd, etching, 1926. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of Russel I. Kully.