[049] MTSU graduate student examines LGBTQ history on ‘MTSU On the Record’

MURFREESBORO — An MTSU graduate student will venture into a largely unexplored area of history on the next “MTSU On the Record” radio program.

Host Gina Logue’s interview with master’s degree candidate Nikita Shepard will air from 9:30 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 29, and from 6 to 6:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 3, on WMOT-FM Roots Radio 89.5 and www.wmot.org.

Shepard, a history major, is the inaugural recipient of the Don Kelly Collection Fellowship, a stipend that enabled him to spend part of his summer conducting research at Texas A&M University. His topic was the history of American lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths.

The collection includes more than 13,000 items, including first-edition publications, author-signed books, pulp novels and community newspapers, as well as other artifacts.

“LGBT activity as sort of an activist endeavor emerged in the 1970s,” said Shepard. “While some people who were professors or academics were involved, a lot of people were just community researchers, people who would, after they got off work, spend long nights in the library, digging through archives and trying to find evidence.”

On July 10, Shepard shared some of his research in a presentation at Texas A&M titled “We’re Here, We’re Queer and Our Parents Think We’re Studying.”

To hear previous “MTSU On the Record” programs, go to http://bit.ly/mtsu-otr.

For more information, contact Logue at 615-898-5081 or WMOT-FM at 615-898-2800.