Lincoln Unites 2022

Lincoln Unites concluded on Tuesday 1 February, after just over a week of events. It was the third time the student-led events series has taken place, since being founded in 2019 by alumna Nupur Patel (2012) to 'address issues of class, disability, gender, internationality, sexuality, race and religion'. As the circumstances of the pandemic continued to change, we organised a mixture of in-person, online and hybrid events. This allowed us to experiment with different formats, from walking tours to film screenings. It also meant we could work with speakers living abroad, and made events more accessible.

The week began with an online panel discussion of 'Disability and Intersectionality' featuring activists Katouche Goll, Aiden Tsen and Danni Watts. We talked about the identities and experiences of disabled students, and how these interact with gender, race and sexuality.

Our first in-person event was a discussion with alumnus Matthew Haley (2000), who spoke about his career as an auctioneer, and how being gay has impacted it. Matthew was engaging and enthusiastic, and it was wonderful to see a real audience (left).

On Thursday, we held a Q&A with the head of the University’s Equality and Diversity Unit, Adrienne Hopkins and, on Friday, a hybrid event involving a screening, live performance and conversation with producer and director Arvind David.

 

The weekend was even busier. It started with a thought-provoking walking tour led by the organisation Uncomfortable Oxford, which explored connections between the University and the British Empire. The remaining events were more informal. We held a Welfare Tea, in collaboration with Lincoln’s undergraduate Welfare Representatives and the charity SolidariTee, which sells t-shirts to raise money for long-term aid for refugees and asylum seekers (right).

 

We also worked with Lincoln’s LGBTQIA+ Representatives, who hosted a screening of Pride (2014) on Saturday evening (left), and introduced their 'QUEERbook project', a scrapbook of Queer History at Lincoln. The final event, organised with the help of the College’s History Society, passed into the third week of term. Dr Justin Bengry, convenor of the world’s firs MA in Queer History, appeared on Zoom before a live audience to give a lecture titled titled 'Pride of Place: Queer History is Everywhere'.