Virginia Tech’s 2020 LGBTQ+ History Month, celebrated throughout the month of October, will feature events in collaboration with the Black Cultural Center, the Black Organizations Council, Cook Counseling Center, the American Indian and Indigenous Community Center, El Centro, and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

One of those events — “Q*nnection Lunch & Learn: International Gay Rights with Dean Laura Belmonte” — will be held on October 29 from noon to 1 p.m. ET. Belmonte is dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, where she is also a history professor.

A specialist in the history of U.S. foreign relations, Belmonte is author of Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War and numerous articles on cultural diplomacy. Her most recent book, The International LGBT Rights Movement: A History, will be published by Bloomsbury later in 2020.

Belmonte served on the national council of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the editorial board of its official journal, Diplomatic History. From 2009 to 2019, she served on the U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Committee for Historical Diplomatic Documentation, a group that participates in ongoing debates over transparency and declassification and the intersections between historical events and contemporary diplomacy.

Visit this Zoom link to register for the event. The College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences joins the LGBTQ+ Resource Center in sponsoring the event.