Dennis Altman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Dennis Patkin Altman (1943-08-16)16 August 1943 (age 82) Sydney,New South Wales, Australia |
| Alma mater | Cornell University |
| Occupation(s) | Academic, activist |
Dennis Patkin AltmanAM (born 16 August 1943) is an Australian academic andgay rights activist.
Dennis Patkin Altman was born in 1943[1][2] inSydney,New South Wales to Jewish immigrant parents, and spent most of his childhood inHobart,Tasmania.[3]
In 1964 he won aFulbright scholarship toCornell University, where he began working with American gay activists.[4]
Returning to Australia in 1969, Altman taught politics at theUniversity of Sydney. In 1985, he became a lecturer atLa Trobe University, where he later became a professor of politics. He was appointed Visiting Chair of Australian Studies atHarvard University in January 2005.[5]
In 2006 Altman was a professorial fellow in the Institute for Human Security at La Trobe University.[6] In 2009 he was appointed director of the Institute for Human Security at La Trobe University.[7][better source needed]
Altman supports organisations dedicated to creating a better life for homosexuals, serving on the Australian National Council on AIDS. He was president of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific as of the 2005 Kobe ICAAP Congress.[8] In October 2006 he was elected to the board ofOxfam Australia.[9] In 2010 he stepped down from this position.[citation needed]
Altman is a longtime patron of theAustralian Queer Archives. He has been deeply involved with government and community responses toHIV/AIDS in Australia and the Asia Pacific. He wroteIn the Mind of America (1986)and Power and Community (1994), regarding the topics of HIV and AIDS.[10]
He was president of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific (2001–2005), and has been a member of the governing council of the International AIDS Society. In 2005 he was visiting professor of Australian studies at Harvard. In July 2006, he was listed byThe Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever.[6]
In June 2008, he was appointed aMember of the Order of Australia.[11]
At the APCOM HERO Awards 2021, he was awarded the Shivananda Khan Award for Extraordinary Achievement.[12]
In 1971, Altman published his first book,Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation[13] – considered an important intellectual contribution to the ideas that shapedgay liberation movements in the English-speaking world. Among his ideas were "the polymorphous whole"[14] and his posing of the notion of "the end of the homosexual", in which the potential for both heterosexual and homosexual behaviour becomes a widespread cultural and psychological phenomenon.[15]
Altman was also a contributor to the New York City based gay liberation newspaperCome Out!, published by theGay Liberation Front, writing two articles for them in 1970 and their last issue in 1972.[16][17]
Altman has delivered speeches on the topic of sexual liberation. One of his most notable speeches was delivered during the first Gay Liberation Group meeting at theUniversity of Sydney on 19 January 1972. It was called "Human beings can be much more than they have allowed themselves to be".[18]
In 1997 Altman wrote an essay, "Global gaze/global gays", in which he proposes that there are cultural connections between homosexuals in different countries and there is a nascent global gay culture.[19]
In his preface to the 1995 republication of his 1946 novelThe City and the Pillar,[20] US authorGore Vidal wrote that Altman had taken a copy of the book back with him to Australia around 1970, but it was seized atSydney Airport. The book was subsequently declared obscene by a judge who observed that the Australian obscenity law was "absurd", thus leading to it being repealed sometime later.[21][better source needed] In 2005 Altman publishedGore Vidal's America, a study of Vidal's writings on history, politics, sex, and religion.[citation needed]
In March 2013 Altman wrote about the death of his partner of 22 years, Anthony Smith, who died from lung cancer in November 2012.[22]
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