History Book Club September 2026
What is the History Book Club?
The History Book Club is a monthly event series that brings together alumni, faculty, students, and friends of the History Department to engage virtually with our faculty and graduates, and learn about their recently published books.
Do I need to read the book to attend this gathering?
You do not! Our History Book Club gatherings are designed to be enjoyed by any history-lover, whether or not you’ve read the featured book.
About the book
The Time of Revolution is Now! A Social History of Trans and Travesti Argentina
(Socarrat Press, May 2026)
This book is a collection of ideas and reflections on the history of trans people in Argentina and South America. It is also a collection of stories about my close friends who inspired my research and who have experienced violence at the hands of the Argentine government, police, and military forces over the last 100 years. The book is divided into four sections: the history of trans and travesti activism in Argentina, the connection between that activism and the larger human rights movement in the country, a narrower biographical focus on some of the activist sex workers, and a collection of articles providing a queer and trans lens to view recent events in Argentina.
About the Hosts
Marce Joan Butierrez
Marce Joan Butierrez is a scholar whose research encompasses anthropology, journalism and history. In 2024, she was employed as a research fellow at the Frankel Institute of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. She is currently the chair of the Sexualities Studies Section at the Latin American Studies Association, and is beginning her PhD at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2026.
As a journalist she was a regular contributor to the digital publications Moléculas Malucas and LatFem. She was also a columnist for the newspaper Página/12. Her current research fields are trans studies and Jewish studies, and the intersection of these two disciplines. Her primary research interests lie in the field of travesti experiences in South America during the latter half of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the political intervention in Argentina, the circulation of embodiment technologies within the region, and the mobilities practices of travestis and transsexuals. In the domain of Jewish studies, she is undertaking research on the role of Rabbi Marshall Meyer in the defense of Jewish and LGBT victims of the Argentine dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s.
Myra Billund-Phibbs
Myra Billund-Phibbs is a historian, library worker, and PhD student in history at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, where her dissertation work explores the daily lives, political agitations, and institutional entanglements of a small group of trans women, trans men, and gay activists in the Upper Midwest of the 1970s. She was formerly the project manager of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project and an archivist at the Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies and Hennepin County Library’s Special Collections.