The Wildcrafting Our Queerness ProjectMain MenuThe Wildcrafting Our Queerness ProjectMain PageArtExplore the art of queer AppalachiansTheory BlogSome major theories grounding queer Appalachian artQueer Appalachian Reading ListResources for further learningAboutLearn more about the project, oral histories, and the project's creator, Maxwell CloeMaxwell Cloed8840c620fc20aeee2b1f40a1e54c0e3967fa30d
1media/cloe_banner.jpg2020-10-18T06:08:49+00:00About9Learn more about the project, oral histories, and the project's creator, Maxwell Cloevisual_path2021-05-26T19:48:08+00:00Hello! My name is Maxwell Cloe (they/he) and I am the current director of the Wildcrafting Our Queerness Project. I am a white person from the small town of Mechanicsville, Virginia, with family roots in northwestern Virginia. I recently received my master's degree in American Studies from the College of William & Mary. This project emerged as the final project for Dr. Liz Losh's "Digital Humanities" class and my 2020 senior honors thesis, Wildcrafting Our Queerness: LGBTQ+ Art, Archiving, and Activism in Contemporary Appalachia. As someone who is not Appalachian, I want to be particularly mindful to center the voices of queer Appalachians; I attempt to reflect this centering by including oral histories that I have conducted with various queer Appalachian artists. These oral histories were conducted and included in this project with express verbal consent from the narrators and the narrators are free to request that their oral histories be taken down at any time, no questions asked. I am not, and will not ever, make any money for this project. When not working on this project, I enjoy playing bluegrass violin, collecting old books, learning about leftist theory, and going on long drives through the countryside.
If you have any questions about me, the project, my work, or would like to see your work included in the project, please feel free to email me at mmcloe@email.wm.edu or reach out on Instagram, @maxwell.cloe. More information about me can also be found on my personal website. I would love to talk with you.