This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

When Eric Servini was working on his doctorate in LGBTQ history, he was surprised by how much

had already been published in the field, but really, apart from professional historians, most people, it seemed, didn't really know this stuff.

The research was largely in peer-reviewed journals and academic press books.

So the obvious solution, he thought, was Instagram.

There was about a nine-month period between when I defended my dissertation and my book

was published. And during that time, I said, you know what, let me, let's try this out. Let me put up some

videos. I got a green screen. I put it up, ironically, in my closet and said, let me, let me film

myself, just telling some of these stories and having fun with it,

you know, posting goofy pictures. I'm going to pretend like I'm in ancient Greece or in Mesopotamia

or, you know, ancient Egypt. And people liked it.

Servini's book, The Deviance War, went on to be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

But it was his homemade videos that inspired a real full-fledged history series on Discovery Plus.

And that's just been launched, and it's called The Book of Queer.

Eric Serveni spoke with the New Yorkers, Michael Schulman.

So let's hear the elevator pitch for the book of queer.

What is this show?

How do you describe it?

It's definitely not something you, you know, your average documentary on the history channel.

Mm-hmm.

I would describe it as a queer history variety show.

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