Is it all about
Tutti Frutti?

At the beginning of 2022, Jacob undertook the UEA Archives and Collections Visiting Fellowship at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UK). He was the inaugural Fellow in that programme. He visited the Library & Archives of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland (Ohio) and the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles (California). “In June 2022, I was one of five fortunate recipients of a Non-Residential Fellowship of Gale and the Committee on LGBT History (CLGBTH),” he says, reporting on another major achievement of this year. This fellowship grants him access to Gale’s Archives of Sexuality and Gender and the GALE Digital Scholar Lab – a significant boon for his research.

In his research project, Jacob examines gender variance and its historical connection to transgressive acts, behaviours, and categories of identity. Using an example, he explains how gender variance (i.e. unconventional gender presentation as expressed through comportment, clothes, and other means) can manifest itself among races, cultures and nationalities: “It is seen in historical attitudes towards gender variance in the African-American community compared to mainstream white culture. Historians such as Preston Lauterbach (2012) and Laura Grantmyre (2011) have observed that drag was a staple of African-American music and theatre, and could even be seen in more casual everyday settings in black neighbourhoods, throughout the first half of the twentieth century.” Yet the narrative of black drag’s decline is at odds with the significant fact that Little Richard became one of the most popular musicians of the 1950s, parlaying the tropes and traditions of black drag to the widest audience the medium had ever seen. In his research project, Jacob argues that the popularity of theatrical black drag and gender variance persisted, and indeed thrived, into the second half of the twentieth century. “In the ONE Archives, I had the opportunity to analyze sources such as mid-twentieth-century African-American periodicals (e.g. Jet magazine), black, queer publications (e.g. BLK magazine) and information on black drag artists (e.g. Sir Lady Java). These sources reveal that the supposed decline of black drag from the mid-twentieth century is more complex than historians have acknowledged, if not false,” he recalls.

In his (upcoming) second monograph Tutti Frutti: Little Richard, Sex, Gender, and Transgression in America and Europe, he talks about Little Richard, who was the musician at the forefront of a new genre of popular music (rock and roll) and was one of the most internationally renowned artists of his generation, all while predicating his persona on gender variance. “One link between my project and present-day issues is the current debate in the US over gender nonconforming children,” he says. Conservative politicians are increasingly taking aim at attempts on the part of adults to affirm gender nonconforming children. For example, Texas legislator Bryan Slaton has voiced his intention to introduce a bill that would ban minors from attending drag shows. Many conservative arguments against affirming gender nonconformity in children have centred on an idea that gender nonconformity is now on the rise. “My work demonstrates that gender nonconformity has been, for centuries, a fundamental part of Western popular culture. Not only that, but drag has historically been seen as family entertainment in many cases,” he recounts. He also draws parallels between moral panic over rock and roll music and the youth cultures of the 1950s and 1960s.

This year, Jacob also invited Eric Lott, Professor for English and American Studies at the City University New York Graduate Center, USA, as a Senior Fellow to the Zukunftskolleg.

They both conduct research in the area of racial, gender and sexual mirroring between white and African-American cultures that drive the history of blackface mimicking and suffuse the musical cultures which Little Richard inherited, camped up and therefore reworked. They are also both looking at the domain of drag performance with its political implications for sexuality, performance, gender innovation and cultural transformation. “Blackface and its legacies have provided the cultural medium in which white and black performers fight it out in the struggle for justice in the United States,” explains Eric.

“My professional relationship with Professor Eric Lott has been hugely fruitful. Professor Lott has written extensively on blackface minstrelsy, for instance, in his book Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (1993). A discussion of blackface minstrelsy is essential to my project,” he says. And Eric Lott adds: “I was surprised when Jacob nominated me as a Senior Fellow because we were not yet acquainted though I knew distantly of his work. The convergences of the work we both do – particularly Jacob’s project on Little Richard – made for a good fit, but I was still gratified and, yes, surprised.” He knew distantly of the Zukunftskolleg through the school of reception theory advanced by Wolfgang Iser. “Since I found Jacob’s work so compelling, because of the Zukunftskolleg context and because I was due to be on sabbatical leave (so could travel more easily), I jumped at the invitation,” recalls Eric. For him, it was an accommodating situation: very easy to settle in, get to work and share ideas. “Everyone has been very welcoming. It’s a quite international array of people and disciplinary perspectives too, which has made the mix even richer. The whole environment is friendly, lively and inspiring,” he says enthusiastically.

During his time in Konstanz, Eric delivered a paper entitled “Marx in Texas: Slavery, Capital, and the Revolutionary 1860s” at an event presented jointly by the Zukunftskolleg and the Centre for Cultural Inquiry (ZKF). He also delivered a separate talk entitled “Blackface from Time to Time” as part of the Zukunftskolleg’s Jour fixe. “On the continuing history of blackface and racial politics, which never seems to die, and on politics and popular music,” he says. He and Jacob are in constant exchange: “We try to outdo each other with insights, backstories and research findings, which is both fun and productive. It’s been a pleasure to work with him on his preparations for various manuscripts and publication protocols.”