I'm speaking at the INF-FNI Naturist University this Sunday
A talk on naturism's archives—and the great-great-grandfather who led me to them
This weekend, June 13 and 14, the 1st International Summer Naturist University convenes in Paris—the inaugural academic seminar I wrote about last month, hosted by INF-FNI and France’s FFN around the theme The Heritage of Naturism: Historical Foundations and Future Directions.
It’s a two-day program spanning the history, philosophy, and culture of naturism—sessions on intangible cultural heritage, naturist architecture, the politics of photographic representation, and the role of archives in naturist thought, with presenters from universities and naturist orgs across Europe and North America.
My own session—which I’ll be giving remotely, live from Nevada—is on the naturist libraries: the small, fragile, volunteer-run collections preserving more than a century of this movement’s history, and the consortium working to keep them alive. I’m telling it through a personal door: my seven-year hunt for the story of Rudolph Johnson, my great-great-grandfather, a Danish immigrant logger who built a cobblestone house, a hundred-foot pool by hand, and went on to lead one of the most consequential reforms in American naturist history. Almost none of it would have been recoverable without these archives.
How to watch (remotely, via Zoom): 🗓 Sunday, June 14 🕙 10:00 Paris · 9:00 London · 4:00 AM ET · 3:00 AM CT · 2:00 AM MT · 1:00 AM PT
Yes, for those of us in North America, that’s the middle of the night—I’ll be presenting live at 1:00 AM Pacific. Register anyway: pre-registration is here, and registering is the best way to catch the session if you’d rather sleep.
I’ll have more to share about the Rudolph research soon. For now, if you’re up at an absurd hour Sunday, come say hello. 🪐