This article is an example of why I find historiographic analysis worth the trouble to slog through the terminology and mental gymnastics (and the occasional need to chase down questions like "what exactly does 'alterity' mean in this context?"). Writers of historical fiction are always asking the question, "What is our relationship to the past?" whether they realize it or not.
LHMP
Blog entry
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 30 (previously 17a) - On the Shelf for December 2017 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2017/12/02 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for December 2017.
There is a standard shape to collections of academic papers like this. One required feature is the introduction that lays out the outline of All That Has Come Before followed by a brief summary of each paper that is included. In the book itself, this is a valuable preface, but in my blogging project it means there will be entries that appear to have no useful content. Like this one. Sorry.
I’ve interleaved a fair amount of criticism and corrections inside my summary of this article, simply because I feel that the material involves so many gaps and oversights that it moves from “flawed” to “misleading”.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 28 (previously 16c) - Book Appreciation with Farah Mendlesohn
(Originally aired 2017/11/18 - listen here)
Farah talks about two novels by Ellen Galford that she really enjoys for their historic elements. (And incidentally inspired me to add Moll Cutpurse to the topic list for the podcast.)
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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 29 (previously 16d) - When did we become Lesbians? - transcript
(Originally aired 2017/11/25 - listen here)
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 27 (previously 16b) - Interview with Farah Mendlesohn
(Originally aired 2017/11/11 - listen here)
This collection centers around the general problem that it is anachronistic and unhistoric to pursue “pre-modern lesbians” from a desire for identity and connection, but that without this desire, the forces and filters of heteronormativity, sexism, and anti-identitarianism work to erase or dismiss the historic data that an identitarian approach is ideally suited to uncover. Historiography challenges the modern lesbian to ask “who or what would I be if I were born in a different era?” And to recognize that individual personal identity is not as fixed as current fashion holds it to be.
Margery Kempe seems to be a popular historic figure for "queering", that is, for identifying ways in which her actions and writings (and even her person) disrupted gender and sexual norms of medieval society. I'm not entirely a fan of this sort of approach.
This is a very theory-intensive book -- historiography rather than history, and not well suited for the casual reader. But there are some great discussions that made it worth tackling. The writing is very dense and my summary only touches on the outlines of the discussion rather than its specifics. Although theories about how we study and interpret history might seem rather removed from the process of writing lesbian historical fiction, from another angle, the two fields have a great deal of overlap.
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