Challenging many of the values and conceits of western civilization, the gay socialist writer Edward Carpenter had an extraordinary impact on the cultural and political landscape of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An advocate of, among other causes, free love, recycling, nudism, women’s suffrage and prison reform, Carpenter’s work anticipated the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and placed him at the epicenter of the literary culture of his day. In this talk, Sheila Rowbotham discusses Carpenter’s life and thought in relation to the contemporary social, aesthetic and intellectual movements of the time.

Sheila Rowbotham is Professor of Gender and Labour History at the University of Manchester, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Her many books include A Century of Women and Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties. Sheila’s critically acclaimed Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love has recently been published in paperback.

The evening was chaired by Dr Matt Cook, Senior Lecturer in History at Birkbeck College.