Between Men-Between Women: Lesbian and Gay Studies – serie

Violence Against Lesbians and Gay Men is the first book to reveal the shocking problem of anti-gay/lesbian violence. Beginning with an overview of the emergence of lesbian and gay neighborhoods in major U.S. cities after World War II, Comstock describes how the increased visibility of lesbians and gay men was followed by physical attacks that were illegal but socially sanctioned. He presents results of his survey on present-day violence and then studies the perpetrators, using information supplied by survey participants as well as reports from the media, court records, and personal interviews. Finally, Comstock proposes a sociological explanation for the fact that adolescent males are the group most prone to violence against lesbians and gay men.

Allen Ellenzweig traces the male gaze upon men as captured by the camera throughout the history of photography. More than one hundred striking, provocative duotone photographs reflect a wide-ranging history of photographic male homoeroticism and the spiritual, physical, and intellectual exchange among men. Accompanying these images is a detailed account of the multiple, complex meanings of the homoerotic that have taken shape from the 1850s to today. Ellenzweig situates each of his artists within their historical context, with chapters devoted to specific photographers and eras. He begins with nineteenth-century French photographer Eugene Durieu and his studies of the male nude, created under the direction of painter Eugene Delacroix. He then takes readers all the way through the rebellious 1960s and the disputes surrounding Robert Mapplethorpe's controversial retrospective in 1989 and 1990. Showing that homoeroticism in photography is anything but a contemporary invention, Ellenzweig unites photographers across the stylistic spectrum within a theme that came to inspire a host of larger spiritual, physical, and intellectual ideals.

Focusing on a variety of representations, from the boundary-shattering work of queer performances to the daring conjunction of childhood sexual abuse and desire in the work of Dorothy Allison, Between the Body and the Flesh stimulates discussions of s/m through the exploration of censorship in the arts, the fetishization of sexual paraphernalia, recombinations of class, race and sexuality, and the politics of psychoanalysis.

All original to this volume, these evocative essays by such scholars as Robyn Wiegman, Elizabeth Grosz, and Judith Roof examine a realm as yet untouched in literary and cultural criticism and gender theory, a specifically lesbian postmodern. The essays trace, on the one hand, how some lesbian cultural theory and production foreground a politics of difference and marginality and thereby critique patriarchal and heterosexual hegemony. On the other hand, some essays note how a postmodern aesthetic, with its valorization of difference, sexual plurality, and gender blurring, assists lesbian cultural production. Among the topics discussed are the shifting definitions of lesbian and postmodern; the potential and danger of this new conceptual territory in theory, literary and visual representation, and popular culture; the lesbian in Hollywood film; actors Jodie Foster and Sandra Bernhard; and works by Jeanette Winterson, Michelle Cliff, and Gloria Anzaldua. Throughout, contributors address the interrelated questions and issues of class, race, ethnicity, postcolonialism, and commodification.

In the three decades since New York City's Stonewall rebellion, gay literature has exploded as a distinctive form of cultural expression. In a variety of styles and genres, gay men have increasingly begun to articulate their sexual identities. At the same time, gay writers and scholars have begun in earnest the search for a literary history long denied by the refusal to recognize homosexual love as an integral part of Western literature. Yet to date, no single volume has brought together the full range of poetry, fiction, essays, and autobiography that portray love between men. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to the poems of Allen Ginsberg and gay literature of the 1980s and '90s, The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature draws together hundreds of texts from Western literary history that describe experiences of love, friendship, intimacy, desire, and sex among men. While other anthologies have focused primarily on poetry, drama, or fiction, this volume is the first to include a full range of genres.Spanning more than two millennia, from ancient Mesopotamia to the late twentieth century, this anthology brings together the best-known texts of gay male writing such as the poetry of Martial and Walt Whitman, and excerpts from E. M. Forster's Maurice, as well as from lesser known works such as nineteenth-century English homoerotic poetry and selections from two early American novels of homosexual love-Joseph and His Friend and Imre. In The Columbia Anthology readers become acquainted with the early bonds of male companionship found in Homer's writings on Zeus and Ganymede, and with the homoerotic poetry of Catullus and Juvenal. From Shakespeare's Sonnets to the philosophy of de Sade, to the political writings of Edmund White, this masterful anthology traces a multifaceted tradition. Arranged chronologically, sections are supplemented by illuminating introductory essays; many individual pieces include background commentary on the writer and the work. As a landmark to the enduring spirit of gay writers, this collection is an essential addition to the library of anyone searching for the historical foundations of gay identities.With its excellent annotations and suggestions for further reading, The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature will also serve as an invaluable resource to students and scholars in need of a guide to a massive body of literature that has long been hidden, ignored, or misrepresented.

The lyrics of Sappho are the earliest surviving examples of explicitly homoerotic literature and have often been analyzed in terms of their revelations about the island society of Lesbos. This volume examines Sappho's poetry through the lens of lesbian desire. It focuses on the active female gaze in the texts and the narrative voice - one that describes female experience and desires as primary, not secondary to the dominant (male) culture. The book provides close readings of the surviving examples of Sappho's poetry, occasionally presenting comparative material from other ancient Greek poets. In addition, a complete transliteration of the Greek verse is intended to enhance the reader's understanding of the original sound and rhythm of the texts. Sappho's influence on a number of lesbian poets, including Amy Lowell, H.D. and Olga Broumas. The text includes an appendix of the original Greek poetry.

The lyrics of Sappho are the earliest surviving examples of explicitly homoerotic literature and have often been analyzed in terms of their revelations about the island society of Lesbos. This volume examines Sappho's poetry through the lens of lesbian desire. It focuses on the active female gaze in the texts and the narrative voice - one that describes female experience and desires as primary, not secondary to the dominant (male) culture. The book provides close readings of the surviving examples of Sappho's poetry, occasionally presenting comparative material from other ancient Greek poets. In addition, a complete transliteration of the Greek verse is intended to enhance the reader's understanding of the original sound and rhythm of the texts. Sappho's influence on a number of lesbian poets, including Amy Lowell, H.D. and Olga Broumas. The text includes an appendix of the original Greek poetry.

Spanning more than a century of photography and film, Hard to Imagine is the first visual chronicle of the evolution of gay male image culture, from the canonical works of "art" photography and cinema to the private and often highly explicit productions of amateurs. This comprehensive work explores a vast, eclectic tradition in its totality, analyzing the aesthetics of the visual imagery, its production, circulation, and consumption, and broad social and legal implications.

-- Paul Farmer, Medical Anthropology Quarterly

Through a series of interviews Schoppmann presents the life stories of ten lesbians who lived through the Nazi era. This book is a bold reminder of the "forgotten victims" of the Third Reich.

-- Michael and Linda Hutcheon, Cambridge Opera Journal

Alan Bray's Homosexuality in Renaissance England is a milestone work, one of those rare books that can be said to have virtually milestone work, one of those rare books that can be said to have virtually inaugurated a field of study--and one which remains a standard, comprehensive introduction to the subject. Since it was first published in England in 1982, however, it has been difficult to find in America. Examining the image of the sodomite in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century literature and polemic, Bray demonstrates how widely that image differed from the everyday occurrences of male homosexual behavior in ordinary households and schools. Homosexuality in Renaissance England explores how men who engaged in sodomy reconciled this behavior with their society's violent loathing for the sodomite, and shows how a social more that had remained stable for centuries changed dramatically toward the end of the seventeenth century.Widely considered the best study of its kind Homosexuality in Renaissance England clearly shows why the modern image of "the homosexual" cannot be applied to the early modern period, when homosexual behavior was viewed in terms of the sexual act and not an individual's broader identity. Bray's classic work goes on to show how the early eighteenth century saw the earliest emergence of a "homosexual identity." Finally available to a broad general audience in America, Homosexuality in Renaissance England is a must-read for anyone interested in sexuality during the early modern period.

In April 1993, as part of the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, hundreds of couples participated in "the Wedding," a symbolic commitment ceremony held in front of the Internal Revenue Service building. Part protest and part affirmation of devotion, the event was a reminder that marriage rights have become a major issue among lesbians and gay men, who cannot marry legally and can only claim domestic partner rights in a few locations in the United States. Yet despite official lack of recognition, same-sex wedding ceremonies have been increasing in frequency over the past decade. Ellen Lewin, who has consecrated her own lesbian relationship with a commitment ceremony, decided to explore the myriad ways in which lesbians and gay men create meaningful ceremonies for themselves. She offers the first comprehensive account of lesbian and gay weddings in modern America. A series of richly detailed profiles-the result of extensive interviews and participation in the planning and realization of many of these commitment rituals-is woven together to show how new traditions, and ultimately new families, are emerging within contemporary America.Just as the book is a moving portrait of same-sex couples today, it is also a significant political document on a new arena in the struggle for lesbian and gay rights. In a larger sense, Lewin's work is about the politics surrounding same-sex marriages and the ramifications for central dimensions of American culture such as kinship, community, morality, and love. Lewin explores the ceremonies themselves, which range from traditional church weddings to Wicca rituals in the countryside, with portraits of the planning, the joys, and the anxieties that led up to the weddings. She introduces Bob and Mark, a leather fetishist couple who sanctified their love by legally changing their last names and exchanging vows in tuxedos, leather bow ties, and knee-high police boots. In an equally absorbing profile, Lewin describes Khadija, from a working-class black family deeply suspicious of whites (and especially Jews) and Shulamith, raised in a Zionist household. She tells of how the two women struggled to reconcile their widely disparate upbringings and how they ultimately combined elements of African and Jewish traditions in their wedding.These, among many other stories, make Recognizing Ourselves a vivid tapestry of lesbian and gay life in post-Stonewall United States.

In April 1993, as part of the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, hundreds of couples participated in "the Wedding," a symbolic commitment ceremony held in front of the Internal Revenue Service building. Part protest and part affirmation of devotion, the event was a reminder that marriage rights have become a major issue among lesbians and gay men, who cannot marry legally and can only claim domestic partner rights in a few locations in the United States. Yet despite official lack of recognition, same-sex wedding ceremonies have been increasing in frequency over the past decade. Ellen Lewin, who has consecrated her own lesbian relationship with a commitment ceremony, decided to explore the myriad ways in which lesbians and gay men create meaningful ceremonies for themselves. She offers the first comprehensive account of lesbian and gay weddings in modern America. A series of richly detailed profiles-the result of extensive interviews and participation in the planning and realization of many of these commitment rituals-is woven together to show how new traditions, and ultimately new families, are emerging within contemporary America.Just as the book is a moving portrait of same-sex couples today, it is also a significant political document on a new arena in the struggle for lesbian and gay rights. In a larger sense, Lewin's work is about the politics surrounding same-sex marriages and the ramifications for central dimensions of American culture such as kinship, community, morality, and love. Lewin explores the ceremonies themselves, which range from traditional church weddings to Wicca rituals in the countryside, with portraits of the planning, the joys, and the anxieties that led up to the weddings. She introduces Bob and Mark, a leather fetishist couple who sanctified their love by legally changing their last names and exchanging vows in tuxedos, leather bow ties, and knee-high police boots. In an equally absorbing profile, Lewin describes Khadija, from a working-class black family deeply suspicious of whites (and especially Jews) and Shulamith, raised in a Zionist household. She tells of how the two women struggled to reconcile their widely disparate upbringings and how they ultimately combined elements of African and Jewish traditions in their wedding.These, among many other stories, make Recognizing Ourselves a vivid tapestry of lesbian and gay life in post-Stonewall United States.

Roof's ambitious, wide-ranging book links narrative theory, theories of sexuality, and gay and lesbian theory to explore the place of homosexuality, and specifically the lesbian, in the tradition of western narrative. According to Freud, perversions are the necessary obstacles in a heroic plot of normal heterosexual development; and homosexuality is the nineteenth century's classic case of perversion. Roof builds on Freud to illustrate that a structural understanding of narrative enforces a heterosexual paradigm, a sense of meaning that provides psychological stability for the reader. Looking at film, television, and lesbian novels, Roof explores how ideas of narrative and sexuality inform, determine, and reproduce one another. She identifies the paradigmatic lesbian story, its unvarying repetition, and how it might be recast. Understanding identification as a narrative practice, and narrative as typically heterosexual and reproductive, Roof shows how sexuality and narrative must be disentangled to alter oppressive social practices.Come As You Are marks a significant contribution to lesbian and gay studies, psychoanalytic theory, and feminism.

Roof's ambitious, wide-ranging book links narrative theory, theories of sexuality, and gay and lesbian theory to explore the place of homosexuality, and specifically the lesbian, in the tradition of western narrative. According to Freud, perversions are the necessary obstacles in a heroic plot of normal heterosexual development; and homosexuality is the nineteenth century's classic case of perversion. Roof builds on Freud to illustrate that a structural understanding of narrative enforces a heterosexual paradigm, a sense of meaning that provides psychological stability for the reader. Looking at film, television, and lesbian novels, Roof explores how ideas of narrative and sexuality inform, determine, and reproduce one another. She identifies the paradigmatic lesbian story, its unvarying repetition, and how it might be recast. Understanding identification as a narrative practice, and narrative as typically heterosexual and reproductive, Roof shows how sexuality and narrative must be disentangled to alter oppressive social practices.Come As You Are marks a significant contribution to lesbian and gay studies, psychoanalytic theory, and feminism.

Even now, at the end of the twentieth century, many still have difficulty standing up and saying, "I am the parent of a gay child." Something to Tell You recounts the stories of families whose lives have been touched by the discovery that a child is lesbian or gay-how it affects and influences people's perceptions of their children and even changes the self-image of parents themselves. Focusing on fifty average families-not people seen in clinics or therapy-the authors found a consistent pattern of change: first negative, then positive. Sometimes the news led parents and siblings to form stronger bonds with the child, with each other, and with other relatives and friends. In many cases, their child's partner and partner's family grew to assume an important role in their own lives. In some cases, parents and siblings discovered new meaning in their lives through speaking out or joining PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and becoming part of the struggle for lesbian and gay rights. The authors found that families committed to staying together are typically able to overcome the powerful obstacles imposed by society.Something to Tell You also shows the lasting and sometimes tragic consequences for families who falter in the process of integration. Unwilling to accept their child's sexuality, some parents sought to blame each other, and all too often their own relationships unraveled as a result. Others who failed to tell close friends sometimes lost those friends through keeping secrets. Parents who neglected to form bonds with their child's partner fostered climates of alienation that persisted for years. A richly diverse collection of family stories, Something to Tell You is a book that will help break down widespread prejudice and put an end to destructive cultural myths. It affirms families' highest aspirations toward active love for their gay children, showing the steps to take toward new levels of support, solidarity, and love.

Even now, at the end of the twentieth century, many still have difficulty standing up and saying, "I am the parent of a gay child." Something to Tell You recounts the stories of families whose lives have been touched by the discovery that a child is lesbian or gay-how it affects and influences people's perceptions of their children and even changes the self-image of parents themselves. Focusing on fifty average families-not people seen in clinics or therapy-the authors found a consistent pattern of change: first negative, then positive. Sometimes the news led parents and siblings to form stronger bonds with the child, with each other, and with other relatives and friends. In many cases, their child's partner and partner's family grew to assume an important role in their own lives. In some cases, parents and siblings discovered new meaning in their lives through speaking out or joining PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and becoming part of the struggle for lesbian and gay rights. The authors found that families committed to staying together are typically able to overcome the powerful obstacles imposed by society.Something to Tell You also shows the lasting and sometimes tragic consequences for families who falter in the process of integration. Unwilling to accept their child's sexuality, some parents sought to blame each other, and all too often their own relationships unraveled as a result. Others who failed to tell close friends sometimes lost those friends through keeping secrets. Parents who neglected to form bonds with their child's partner fostered climates of alienation that persisted for years. A richly diverse collection of family stories, Something to Tell You is a book that will help break down widespread prejudice and put an end to destructive cultural myths. It affirms families' highest aspirations toward active love for their gay children, showing the steps to take toward new levels of support, solidarity, and love.

-- Christa Davis Acampora, Hypatia

In Sappho Goes to Law School Ruthann Robson weaves together concepts taken from traditional legal theory, postmodernism, feminist theory, and queer theory, as well as her own personal experience in the courtroom and classroom, to take stock of the complexities of lesbian identity and the often detrimental ways in which legal scholarship approaches lesbianism.

In Sappho Goes to Law School Ruthann Robson weaves together concepts taken from traditional legal theory, postmodernism, feminist theory, and queer theory, as well as her own personal experience in the courtroom and classroom, to take stock of the complexities of lesbian identity and the often detrimental ways in which legal scholarship approaches lesbianism.

In candid, in-depth interviews, gay men discuss their experiences in the age of AIDS, their attitudes toward sex, and their motives for engaging in behaviors that are widely considered to be dangerous health risks. Revealing that such factors as guilt for being HIV negative, alcohol and drug use, and low self-esteem are possible causes of continuing dangerous sexual behavior, Turner also recommends ways to promote safer sex while respecting the choices and judgments of gay men.

-- Dr. April Martin, author of The Lesbian and Gay Parenting Handbook

-- Dr. April Martin, author of The Lesbian and Gay Parenting Handbook

In many works by modern British women writers, two women form a strong bond only to have that relationship stymied, paralyzed or interrupted. A female character, fearing discovery of covert lesbian desires, lashes out at another woman, resulting in emotional or physical harm to herself or others. Patricia Smith defines this narrative as "lesbian panic". What happens when a character or an author is unwilling to confront or reveal her own lesbianism or lesbian desire? For Smith, lesbian panic is often a fear of losing one's identity and value within the heterosexual paradigm. Smith traces the history of "lesbian panic" through key works: Woolfe's "The Voyage Out" and "Mrs Dalloway"; Bowen's "The Little Girls" and "Eva Trout"; Brophy's "King of a Rainy Day"; Lessing's "The Golden Notebook"; and Spark's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie". Smith reveals how and why this panic is represented and she explores how postmodern lesbian writers have attempted to break away from this narrative.

Male homosexual activity in public and semipublic locations is a central but seldom explored dimension of gay culture around the world. The majority of existing research emphasizes the impersonality of such erotic interaction and underscores the element of danger involved. While never denying the danger of anonymous public sex in the age of AIDS, the contributors to Public Sex/Gay Space go beyond narrow moralisms about the need to regulate unsafe sexual practices to discuss the significance of sex in public. William Leap has brought together contributions from such fields as anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, and history to reinvigorate the discussion on this issue, with twelve essays providing a more nuanced portrait of why public sexual activity is such an integral part of gay culture. The authors present rich ethnographic snapshots of male sex in public places--many drawn from interviews with participants or, in some instances, the authors' personal experiences.Contributors investigate a broad cultural spectrum of gay sexual space and activity: in a public park in contemporary Hanoi, at the beachfront community of New York's Fire Island, and in nineteenth-century Amsterdam, for example.They explore issues such as visibility and secrecy, as well as economic status and social class, and interrogate the historical trajectories through which certain locations come to be favored sites for sexual encounters. Together, they offer insight into the ways in which public sex calls into question the very line that divides "public" from "private."

Surprisingly little has been written about homosexuality in British Romantic writing, and, similarly, little discussion has emerged about homosexual themes in the lives and poetic careers of the major Romantics. In Romantic Genius, Andrew Elfenbein explores the correspondence between the stereotypes applied to the "genius" and those applied to the homosexual, showing the centrality of disreputable desires to the works of Romantic male authors-from William Beckford to Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Blake-as well as to the writings of lesser-known but equally significant female authors of the period.

Surprisingly little has been written about homosexuality in British Romantic writing, and, similarly, little discussion has emerged about homosexual themes in the lives and poetic careers of the major Romantics. In Romantic Genius, Andrew Elfenbein explores the correspondence between the stereotypes applied to the "genius" and those applied to the homosexual, showing the centrality of disreputable desires to the works of Romantic male authors-from William Beckford to Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Blake-as well as to the writings of lesser-known but equally significant female authors of the period.

Gay Science is the first comprehensive examination of the ethical questions surrounding sexual orientation research. Bioethicist Timothy Murphy presents the views of many gay men and women who detect ominous motives behind this research. If a genetic marker were discovered for homosexual tendencies would genetic screening be used to further discriminate against gay people? If a method for changing sexual orientation were developed would it would be forced upon gay adults, or children whose parents suspected they might grow up to be gay? Given the potential for its misuse, is sexual orientation research fundamentally unethical? Murphy acknowledges that much of sexual orientation research to date has been bad science, questionable in its motives and methodologically unsound. He examines the social and historical conditions, from the 1880s to the present, that spawned this research and reviews the findings that have often perpetuated confusion about homosexuality. He assesses five major studies on sexual orientation undertaken in the 1990s, from neuroanatomist Simon leVay's study of certain brain structures in gay men to the work of psychologist Joseph Nicolosi.He questions the flawed and simplistic assumptions about sexuality made by much of this research, Murphy argues that a true science of sexual orientation would not be focused exclusively upon homosexuality nor presuppose its pathology. Throughout the book Murphy argues that concerns about the potential misuses of this research do not justify its prohibition. Tackling gay science's most troubling aspects, he contends that if this research leads to the development of effective sexual orientation therapies, informed adults should have the choice to undergo them; he also examines the factors that weigh in favor of a parental right to choose or attempt to influence the sexual orientation of a child, and the ethical limits to such a right. Pointing to the potential benefits of sexual orientation research as well as acknowledging its potential for harm, Murphy ultimately defends gay science in the name of free scientific inquiry. Gay Science argues that the way to ensure the future of gay people is not through censoring sexual orientation research but through working toward a society which uses reseach as a way of dinstinguishing myth from fact and not as an instrument of discrimination.