Erinnerungen an die Möglichkeit einer Historiografie lesbischer Frauen und die queere Notwendigkeit ihres Verlusts

Abstract

Abstract Against the backdrop of re-reading and re-writing some of their own research, the author queries premises of writing the history of a figuration which is or was called ‘lesbian women’. The emphasis lies on studies about German-speaking countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What can “lesbian history” mean at all nowadays, the very term “lesbian” seeming thoroughly ‘queered’ and re-written in a trans*feminist frame? Referring to Michelle Perrot’s classic question “Is writing women’s history possible?” and to Michel Foucault’s deliberations on an archeology of knowledge, the paper reflects upon transformations of knowledge production concerning ‘lesbian history’ since the 1970s. The respective ‘progress’ in research and theory turns out to be as complex as contradictory. In the beginnings of lesbianfeminist historiography in German contexts, de-essentialising femininity was much more present than one might presuppose; later on, historical research evolved less clearly towar...