One of the most annoying "historical firewalls" in researching queer history is getting past the notion that the rise of the sexologists in the late 19th century was the most defining event in queer history. If you start by looking backward from the present day, it's all too easy to run into Ellis and Kraft-Ebbing and swallow the idea that they invented homosexuality and that everything before that is a "dark age".
LHMP
Blog entry
Sometimes the volume of my interspersed commentary in an LHMP entry is an index to how much I disagree with it. But sometimes--as in the present case--it's because I find the content so challenging and engaging that I was to become part of the conversation. I want to discuss the subject, to dig deeper, to bring in additional angles, to talk my way through the process of integrating the ideas into my own global understanding. I'm not in the position of having those conversations with the authors.
Lots of thinky thoughts on this book, but they're all in the commentary below. Due to length, I've split this entry up into several parts, though my coverage of the chapters is uneven so I've clustered the shorter ones together.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 46c - History and Historic Fiction with Janet Todd
(Originally aired 2020/05/16 - listen here)
Transcript pending
Show Notes
A chat with historian and historical novelist Janet Todd.
In this episode we talk about:
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 160 (previously 46e) - “Cardinal’s Gambit” by Catherine Lundoff - transcript
(Originally aired 2020/05/30 - listen here)
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 157 (previously 46b) - Interview with Janet Todd
(Originally aired 2020/05/09 - listen here)
A transcript for this show is pending.
Show Notes
A series of interviews with authors of historically-based fiction featuring queer women.
In this episode we talk about:
While this book does provide some useful analysis of pre-20th century practices and attitudes around cross-dressing, it is even more enlightening on how much has changed around the topic in the last two decades. Readers today may find some of Garber's discussions as alien as a 100-year-old book would be.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast: Episode 46d - Aphra Behn (reprise) - transcript
(Originally aired 2020/05/22 - listen here)
(This is a reprise of episode 7, aired 2017/02/25)
This is a reprise of an earlier episode from the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast. I hope you enjoy revisiting the topic, or perhaps this is your first chance to listen to it.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 156 (previously 46a) - On the Shelf for May 2020 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2020/05/02 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for May in the Year of the Great Quarantine.
How are you-all holding up?
The concept and legacy of the salon movement deeply unpins several character dynamics in my Alpennia series. Of the central characters, Jeanne de Cherdillac is the only one old enough to have been part of pre-French-revolution society. She was mentored by a prominent Rotenek salonnière and was expected to take up a similar role for herself, except for the intervention of the French occupation and personal tragedy.
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