The second item in my "Europeans talk about lesbianism in the Ottoman Empire" series introduces a topic that I'll come back to repeatedly and discuss in the upcoming podcast. For all that we have this variety of 16-17th century "travelers' tales" that make some reference to lesbian desire in women's spaces in Ottoman society, we should be skeptical about the independence of these reports.
LHMP
Blog entry
I've had a project on my to-do list to put together a podcast on Early Modern European perceptions of lesbianism in the Ottoman Empire. And as preparation, I wanted to do a deep dive into the source material on this topic. So this is the first in a series of primary source posts to that end. (I'll try to get all the source material posted before the podcast goes up.) One of the curious aspects of this topic is to see how much of the "travelers' tales" genre turns out to be recycled material from previous publications.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 272 - On the Shelf for November 2023 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2023/11/04 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for November 2023.
While this article is interesting in its own right, it wasn't the article on this topic I hoped to find. And I'm not entirely certain that "female rake" is the most appropriate way to categorize Con Phillips. She certainly appears to have had libertine leanings, and stands outside the ideals of English womanhood of the day. But I envision the role of "rake" as involving a bit less financial dependence on one's amours.
[Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 271 – The Salt Price by B. Pladek - transcript
(Originally aired 2023/10/28 - listen here)
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 270 - Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 10: Rakes - transcript
(Originally aired 2023/10/21 - listen here)
Maybe I'm just not in the right headspace for this article. Maybe it simply isn't operating on my wavelength. But I found it incoherent and boring (and of only tenuous connection to either "literature" or "gay and lesbian"). Sorry about that.
I'll wrap up this book with another post that simply lists the chapters that I didn't cover due to falling entirely within the 20th century. Then on to something more interesting!
In an odd way, I felt that this chapter did a disservice to its topic by expanding the scope of "queerness" so far beyond the more default meaning in the collection, as if the author couldn't think of enough to say in a chapter on Black writing in a collection about gay and lesbian literature and felt the need to pad it out.
This weekend I rose at an ungodly hour of the morning to attend a 2-day online conference of research into Anne Lister and her world. Recordings of sessions (this year and past years) are available through the main conference web page. In the sidebar, under each year’s conference, select the “resources” tab to find them. I plan to check out some of the previous sessions when I have time—in particular, a session from last year on vocabulary that Lister used around sex, and other sexual vocabulary of the time.
Considering the significant presence of literature (and literary personalities) in the construction of "romantic friendship," no single chapter is going to give more than a teaser on the topic. After this, there are two more chapters that fall within the pre-20th century scope of the Project, then I'll probably have one final entry that simply lists the titles of the later articles. I'd meant to finish this up a bit more promptly, but the day-job has been grueling for the last couple weeks.
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