One of the themes mentioned by several authors in the collection The Lesbian Premodern was that social understandings of gender/sexuality in Western culture behave in cyclic ways, not as a linear evolutoin of understanding and expression. Lanser's article here looks at one of those cycles: the association of female homoerotic discourse, feminist philosophy, and woman-centered socializing. Understanding cycles such as these can be critical to grounding fiction in a particular time and place.
LHMP
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The unfortunate fact is that one of the best sources of detailed information on pre-modern same-sex eroticism comes from legal records when those relationships came under scrutiny either by religious or secular authorities. This not only means that those case histories often are accompanied by tragic fates or at least unhappy ends, but it means that we can get an image of the participants as viewing their own experiences negatively.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 63 (previously 24c) - Book Appreciation with Justine Saracen - transcript
(Originally aired 2018/07/21 - listen here)
Heather Rose: This week, Justine Saracen joins us again to talk about some favorite books she's read that feature queer women in history. Welcome back, Justine.
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 62 (previously 24b) - Interview with Justine Saracen - transcript
(Originally aired 2018/07/14 - listen here)
One of the serendipitiously enjoyable things about deep dives into history is discovering personal connections between unexpected people. When I did my podcast on actress Charlotte Cushman, I was stunned by how she fit into an enormous network of literary, political, and artistic women of the mid 19th century, operating across Europe and America. My imagined "girl gang" here is purely one of the imagination.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 61 (previously 24a) - On the Shelf for July 2018 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2018/07/07 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for July 2018.
I’d like to give a shout-out to all the listeners currently at the Golden Crown Literary Society conference, even though I doubt any of them will be listening to this podcast until later. It’s a pretty jam-packed event.
This article, written in 1993 (which I will remind readers is 25 years ago) feels rather outdated with regard to both the language and views of the topic. This article was published two years before Donoghue’s masterwork Passions Between Women and no doubt represents some of the contributory research and thought that appears there. But given that the topic would be best considered through multiple lenses--not only a lesbian lens, but a transgender one and and intersex one--it should be considered an introduction to a topic that deserves deeper interrogation.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 60 (previously 23e) - Inscribed by V. M. Agab - transcript
(Originally aired 2018/06/30 - listen here)
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 59 (previously 23d) - The Ladies of Llangollen - transcript
(Originally aired 2018/06/23 - listen here)
Information about the everyday experiences of queer women in history comes in snips and scraps. Given that, it's easy for general histories of women's experiences to ignore or omit them entirely. The publication I'm drawing from today took the course of including such data among it's overall survey of primary source materials--an approach that helps provide the general reader with clues that there's more going on in history than a focus on "typical lives" often communicates.
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