James T. Sears is an independent scholar focusing on Queer History. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Growing up Gay in the South, Lonely Hunters: An Oral History Of Lesbian And Gay Southern Life, 1948-1968, Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation, and Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South. A former Fulbright Scholar, he has taught at Trinity University, Indiana University, Harvard University, Penn State University, the University of South Carolina, and was a research fellow and the University of Queensland and the University of Southern California. He continues to lecture throughout the world.