About

An evening of maritime mythologies at the Queen's House in celebration of the launch of Queer as Folklore, the new book from writer, historian and community organiser Sacha Coward.

Traces of many of the creatures, historical figures and magical beings treated in Coward's book can be found in Royal Museums Greenwich’s own collections; namely pirates and mermaids. A notable example is Evelyn De Morgan’s The Sea Maidens, an aestheticist painting by the 19th-century spiritualist painter, which hangs in the Queen's House. Coward will discuss these and queer histories of folklore more broadly with Katherine McAlpine, Director of the Brunel Museum.

Researcher Ema Sala will also present a talk on "female sailors", a term used through the nineteenth century to refer to people raised as women who went on to sail as men. These real-life sailors became the protagonists of a tradition of ballads, often represented as resourceful, seductive tricksters. Investigating this repertoire of songs as a repertoire of bodies, Sala will employ these depictions to challenge contemporary assumptions on the presence of trans people in historical documents.

* This event will be BSL interpreted.

About Sacha Coward
Sacha Coward is a researcher, historian and public speaker. He has worked in museums and heritage for fifteen years running tours focused on LGBTQ+ history for museums, cemeteries, archives and cities all around the world.

Sacha has featured on a variety of television, radio and podcast shows and written articles on topics as varied as Turing's Law, the rainbow flag, Caravaggio's paintings and Viking burials. Queer as Folklore is Sacha's first book. He lives in Stroud.

About Ema Sala
Ema Sala is part of the Queer History Club at the National Maritime Museum. They research transmasc history, in particular Female sailors, people raised as women who went to sea as men in the 19th century. Their research interests include ballads, clothing, and nosing through ship lists.