Joshua Gamson

Joshua Gamson (born November 16, 1962) is an American scholar and author. A graduate of Swarthmore College and the University of California, Berkeley,^[1] he served on the faculty of Yale University^[2] before becoming a professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco. His work has appeared in The Nation, The American Prospect, Newsday, Gender & Society, the Journal of the History of Sexuality, and Sociological Inquiry.^[1] He is the son of sociologists William and Zelda F. Gamson.^[3]

Gamson received the 2006 Stonewall Book Award for nonfiction for The Fabulous Sylvester,^[4] his biography of disco singer and activist Sylvester, which was also shortlisted for the 2005 Lambda Literary Awards.^[5] In a mostly positive review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau lamented the gaps in Gamson's knowledge of music history, but praised his "details and insights" into Sylvester's life.^[6] Kirkus Reviews called the book "worshipful, occasionally overenthusiastic, yet engaging and sometimes surprisingly insightful."^[7]

He was a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow^[8] and received a Placek Award from the American Psychological Association in 1995.^[9]

Bibliography

• Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America (1994)
• Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity (1998)
• The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, The Music, The Seventies in San Francisco (2005)
• Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to Kinship (2015)