Queer Tarot

This free public event, organised by the IES and the IHR, draws connections between queer occult countercultures in north America and Britain from the 1960s to the current day. It also showcases Senate House library’s significant collection of paranormal literature, and complements the Warburg’s Tarot exhibition (31 January – 30 April 2025) and the London Rare Books School ‘Print and the ascent of magic’ short course (5-7pm, 25-27 March 2025).

Three lecture/performances by artists and researchers will be followed by a display of tarot related items in Senate House’s special collections. There will then be a drinks reception with a stall run by Treadwell’s bookshop, and tarot readings. 

Speakers:

• Courtney Alexander, multidisciplinary artist, writer and publisher, will present her Dust II: A Melanated Tarot. This consists of 78 mixed media collage paintings accented with metallic and holographic foils, featuring cultural myths, symbolism, history, and icons within the Black Diaspora. 
  
  
• Don Lickley, KCL PhD researcher and occasional card-slinger,  will discuss his research on Bill Butler, the radical, gay, American proprietor of Unicorn Books in Brighton who published several books on tarot in the 1970s. He will more broadly discuss the importance of tarot to British queer and countercultural communities in the 1960-70s. 
  
  
• John Walter, transdisciplinary artist and tutor at University of Westminster, will present his Alien Sex Club tarot cards, which formed part of an immersive, multi-sensory exhibition devoted to HIV and contemporary sexual health. 
• Claire Langhamer, Director of the Institute of Historical Research, will chair.

For more information about the event and the LRBS course, please contact Pragya Dhital.

This event has been generously funded by the John Coffin Memorial Trust Fund, awarded by the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Image: Dust II Onyx: A Melanated Tarot Deck  reproduced with permission of Courtney Alexander.