Lesbian Novels Research Articles

Exiles of love?: uncovering lesbian voices in interwar Czechoslovakia

Lesbian voices and experiences have received little attention in Czech historiography: recent research has concentrated on the modern era from the 1950s. This article deepens our understanding of lesbian lives in interwar Prague. It focuses on two forgotten lesbian novels, Exiles of Love and The Third Sex, which were deliberately suppressed after 1948 by the Communist regime as examples of inferior bourgeois literature. The two authors, Lída Merlínová and Gill Sedláčková, both hailed from Prague’s cultural world (theatre and film) and were active too in the 1930s Czech movement for homosexual reform. Spanning the late twenties to the late thirties, the novels reveal tantalising glimpses of the evolving sub-culture of interwar Prague. Merlínová’s naïve novel of 1929, Exiles of Love, was the first Czech lesbian novel, and it betrayed the 1920s optimism of the ‘Czech New Woman’ who was prepared to challenge gender stereotypes. Sedláčková’s novel, The Third Sex, is a more explicit study from 1937, reflecting the more mature sub-culture but also a cynicism about the chances of homosexual reform. Yet it manages, even more than Exiles, to convey an uplifting and moral message. Indeed, both novels are about lesbian self-knowledge, exploring the scope for same-sex survival in a world where the best solution may be abroad, not in ‘provincial Prague’. In restoring these texts to lesbian literature we recover a range of voices, expressing the hopes and frustrations of some queer Czech women in an unusually liberal era.

Das Rote Wien: Schlüsseltexte der Zweiten Wiener Moderne, 1919–1934 by Rob McFarland, Georg Spitaler and Ingo Zechner

Reviewed by: Das Rote Wien: Schlüsseltexte der Zweiten Wiener Moderne, 1919–1934 by Rob McFarland, Georg Spitaler and Ingo Zechner Viktoria Pötzl Rob McFarland, Georg Spitaler, and Ingo Zechner, editors. Das Rote Wien: Schlüsseltexte der Zweiten Wiener Moderne, 1919–1934. De Gruyter, 2020. 956 pp. Cloth, $57.99. English translation: The Red Vienna Sourcebook. Camden House, 2020. 804 pp. Paper, $49.95; cloth, $120.00. In late spring of 2019, I walked through an exhibition at the Wien Museum at the city hall titled Das Rote Wien: 1919–1934 (Red Vienna: 1919–1934). Along with this exhibition came a catalog, Das Rote Wien: 1919–1934. Ideen. Debatten. Praxis (2019; Red Vienna: 1919–1934. Ideas. Debates. Practice). Not only the title and the extensive amount of material displayed and covered but also one of the editors, Georg Spitaler, are elements that the exhibition catalog and this sourcebook have in common. The editors of Das Rote Wien offer an almost thousand-page tome of primary sources that draw a vivid picture of interwar Vienna, a period [End Page 123] that witnessed intense political and intellectual activism. This rich sourcebook includes not only key texts from well-known authors such as Gina Kaus and Stefan Zweig but also those of lesser-known, nearly forgotten authors such as Eugen Höflich (who would later change his name to Moscheh Ya’akov Ben-Gavriêl) or Hermynia zur Mühlen, the author of Unsere Töchter, die Nazinen (1935; Our Nazi daughters). Clearly, the editors have labored to introduce diverse women’s voices by including the likes of Therese Schlesinger, Käthe Leichter, Else Feldman, and Joe Lederer, among others. Nevertheless, the ratio remains underwhelming and we are left with a sourcebook dominated by male authors at roughly 60 percent, with the remaining 40 percent evenly divided between women authors and unknown authors or anonymous sources. Indeed, a better ratio could have been achieved in this otherwise indispensable sourcebook by including women such as Klara Blum/Zhu Bailana, a prolific writer who published extensively in Die Arbeiterzeitung (Workers’ newspaper); Minna Lachs and her pedagogical texts; and Bertha Pappenheim, founder of the League of Jewish Women, to name just a few. Das Rote Wien covers thirty-six chapters across twelve sections. The different themes, such as political violence, architecture, and sexuality, are crisply introduced and contextualized by a set of respected scholars. The book’s well-organized structure allows us to navigate with exceptional ease. It stands as a great source for everyone interested in Vienna’s intellectual and cultural life before World War II, as it makes a variety of key texts—from newspaper articles to party pamphlets and literary texts—accessible to a broader audience for the first time. Surprisingly, Jewish life or women’s movements are not limited to their respective chapters. One can find texts centering on or related to Jewish life in every single chapter, and every section includes one or more female perspectives on its particular thematic focus. One may wonder at first why a book titled Das Rote Wien includes the writings of a National Socialist, anti-Semitic author like Grete von Urbanitzky, who ironically wrote one of the earliest-known Austrian lesbian novels (Der wilde Garten, 1927; The wild garden). The answer is simple: she too, and unfortunately many like her, were part of this checkered legacy of a Red Vienna, which ultimately gave rise to its own destruction. By additionally showing the downside of a glorified and mystified Red Vienna—anti-Semitism, misogyny, and the early roots [End Page 124] of National Socialism—it is exactly here that Das Rote Wien shows its strengths. Yet the editors were also conscientious by not giving voice to prominent anti-Semites like Georg Schönerer or Karl Lueger, choosing instead to reference them only when necessary. Das Rote Wien succeeds in displaying the cultural and intellectual richness of a complex period without falling prey to excessive glorification—juxtaposing progressive and critical texts with prejudiced ones. The sources collected in Das Rote Wien present an alternative history that speaks to our present. They should be read not as failed concepts of a distant past but rather as viable...

Censura y traducción al español de la novela lésbica en inglés: el caso de Rubyfruit Jungle (1973)

This article analyses the only translation into Spanish of Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle (1973), translated in Spain by Jorge Binaghi in 1979. In order to do so, the study reviews lesbian narrative in English during the 20th century and the social and political factors that might have influenced its translation in Spain. An overview on Francoist literary censorship is followed by a discussion on how the Spanish literary market has received English lesbian novels and the case of Rubyfruit Jungle. Despite being one of the first lesbian novels published in democracy in Spain, the analysis suggests that the Francoist ideological paradigms are still perpetuated and have altered the translation.

Lesbian books are no longer just for lesbians: legacies of lesbian print culture

Since 1996, two significant film adaptations of lesbian novels remediated the work of lesbian-feminism for broader audiences. Anjelica Huston directed the adaptation of Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina for Showtime, a cable station, in 1996; Lee Daniels directed Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire as a feature film in 2009. Lesbian print culture nurtured and supported Allison’s and Sapphire’s early careers; both published work in lesbian-feminist journals, and lesbian-feminist presses published their early books. The movement of these author’s work, first to commercial publishers and then to film, represents wider distribution of lesbian-feminism and its attendant ideas and ideologies to both lesbian and non-lesbian audiences. Examining these two books and their film counterparts reshapes thinking about the history of feminism in the 1980s and its on-going effects. These books and the film adaptations demonstrate how audiences adopted empathy for and shared solidarity with lesbian-feminist sensibilities through lesbian texts creating meaning and value for these stories outside of their original coterie communities. Films offer possibilities and perils for lesbian-feminist ideas to reach beyond their original audiences.

Drag’s Double Inversion: Insufficient Language and Gender Performativity in The Well of Loneliness and Nightwood

ABSTRACTContemporary critics often object to the outdated, binary representations of gender and sexuality present in two of the earliest lesbian novels, The Well of Loneliness and Nightwood, arguing they have little to offer our modern conceptions of identity. This article re-examines these two texts through the lens of “drag” performance to demonstrate that they prefigure Judith Butler’s gender performance and testify to the contingency not only of identity, but also of language. These two early twentieth century novels illustrate that not only are fixed categories insufficient for representing identity in language, but that it is all but impossible to conceive of gender without being limited by existing linguistic structures. Both Radclyffe Hall and Djuna Barnes very clearly demonstrate that the sign systems used to express identity—whether they be linguistic or performative codes—are not mediums which represent any “truth” about inner reality, but are merely contingent upon pre-existing systems.

Film Adaptations of Thérèse et Isabelle and Le bleu est une couleur chaude: Is It Time to Shift Our Gaze?

This essay examines two film adaptations of lesbian novels set forty-five years apart: Therese and Isabelle, Radley Metzger’s 1968 adaptation of Violette Leduc’s novel Thérèse et Isabelle, and La vie d’Adèle: chapitres 1 et 2, Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2013 adaptation of Julie Maroh’s graphic novel, Le bleu est une couleur chaude. Using these two landmark productions and the respective novels from which they are adapted, this study offers perspective on the current critical utility of the male-gaze theory, highlighting it as a necessary passage of film theory, but also as one that is destroying itself.

Mockingbird passing: closeted traditions and sexual curiosities in Harper Lee's novel

How often does a novel earn its author both the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to Harper Lee by George W. Bush in 2007, and a spot on a list of 100 best gay and lesbian novels ? Clearly, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee Pulitzer Prize winning tale of race relations and coming of age in Depression-era Alabama, means many different things to many different people. In Passing, Holly Blackford invites the reader to view Lee beloved novel in parallel with works by other iconic American writers from Emerson, Whitman, Stowe, and Twain to James, Wharton, McCullers, Capote, and others. In the process, she locates the book amid contesting literary traditions while simultaneously exploring the rich ambiguities that define its characters. Blackford finds the basis of s broad appeal in its ability to embody the mainstream culture of romantics like Emerson and social reform writers like Stowe, even as alternative canons southern gothic, deadpan humor, queer literatures, regional women novels lurk in its subtexts. Central to her argument is the notion of passing: establishing an identity that conceals the inner self so that one can function within a closed social order. For example, the novel narrator, Scout, must suppress her natural tomboyishness to become a lady. Meanwhile, Scout father, Atticus Finch, must contend with competing demands of thoughtfulness, self-reliance, and masculinity that ultimately stunt his effectiveness within an unjust society. Blackford charts the identity dilemmas of other key characters the mysterious Boo Radley, the young outsider Dill (modeled on Lee lifelong friend Truman Capote), the oppressed victim Tom Robinson in similarly intriguing ways. Queer characters cannot pass unless, like the narrator, Miss Maudie, and Cal, they split into the modest double life. In uncovering To Kill a lively conversation with a diversity of nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers and tracing the equally diverse journeys of its characters, Blackford offers a myriad of fresh insights into why the novel has retained its appeal for so many readers for over fifty years. At once Victorian, modern, and postmodern, Mockingbird passes in many canons. Holly Blackford, an associate professor of English at Rutgers University Camden, has published extensively in the fields of American literature and children literature.

Odd girl in: expanding lesbian fiction holdings at Barnard College

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a case study of a specialty collection implementation: lesbian fiction, in the Barnard College Library.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs a multistep approach to implement the development of a lesbian fiction collection. First, a collection profile was created to assess the current state of collection, and then a checklist was developed to serve as a collection development tool.FindingsThe collection profile provides important information for the collection development process. Consistent subject heading access control is essential for collection assessment and maintenance.Practical implicationsThe collection proposal and the suggestions drawn by the study were adopted by Barnard Library for collection development and maintenance. The methodology applied and the resources consulted in the study can serve as references for academic librarians with similar collection development goals.Originality/valueVery few studies have been done to discuss issues related to the collection development of GLBT themed fiction, particularly lesbian fiction in an academic library. This paper provides a concrete example of how Barnard Library carried out the selection of lesbian novels.

以女性主義的觀點來閱讀西維亞•湯森•渥拿(Sylvia Townsend Warner)作品中女同志的主體性

Sylvia Townsend Warner has been exiled from the pages of literary history, marginalized as either a radical communist or a lesbian writer. Her contribution to women's political development as well as her expressions of lesbian subjectivity cannot be denied. In this article, I will discuss lesbian identity in her biographical and fictional forms. The following has four sections. Firstly, Warner's relationship with her father and with Valentine Ackland will be examined. Then the second section examines the issues of women's politics as located in Warner's biographical experiences and in her literary works. I shall then define a lesbian novel, and explore the oppressions that women and lesbians encounter in Warner's lesbian novels, Lolly Willowes and Summer Will Show. Finally, I will position such popular categories as the celibate and witchcraft within Warner's political categories, and examine the relation between her socialism, her claims for women's private property and her lesbian subjectivity.

The treatment of gay and lesbian fiction for young adults in selected prominent reviewing media

Content analysis was used to determine how a sample of 32 gay and lesbian novels for young adults were treated in 158 reviews from five prominent reviewing journals. Findings indicate that most reviews (84.8 percent) were favourable, many (79.7 percent) contained clear reference to the homosexual content, and there were few differences between the individual reviewing journals. Some reviews contained cautions and warnings about the gay and lesbian content, some denied or downplayed it, some justified the content if it was used to teach a lesson, and most described these stories as “problem” novels. Analysis also showed that gay and lesbian fiction is now regarded as a distinct genre of young adult literature. While librarians wishing to identify gay and lesbian fiction for collection development will be able to do so through the reviewing media, ambivalence about this literature and the young adults it represents was also evident in the reviews.

Come as You Are: Sexuality and Narrative

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.

Sexuality in Lesbian Romance Fiction

Romance research has mainly concentrated on heterosexual romances. Lesbian romantic novels have, as far as I know, been extensively discussed only in 'Some pulp Sappho' by Fran Koski and Maida Tilchen (1979). Lesbian trash does not figure much in the few other texts on lesbians or lesbianism in literature (see Zimmerman, 1985, 1990, Jay and Glasgow,1990). In this paper, I propose to discuss lesbian romances as a reader, concentrating on a 1950s lesbian pulp novel Stranger on Lesbos, and a modern romance, An Emergence of Green. The lesbian texts have a quite different background regarding how they were and are published and how they are bought and read. For one thing there are not nearly as many lesbian romances available as there are Mills & Boon or other mass-marketed heterosexual romances. According to Jane Rule, author of lesbian novels, a lot of romances are still sold by mail order (Opzij, 1985). Apparently, another difference between straight and lesbian romances, is that North-American readers of the latter genre still do not like to be seen buying one. Many confess they hide their copies of lesbian pulps in more neutral covers. Koski and Tilchen quote Kate Millett who even burnt hers in case a sublet would find them (1979: 262). The mass phenomenom researched by Tania Modleski (1982), Janice Radway (1984) and others, such as Ros Coward (1984), Cora Kaplan (1986), Ann-Rosalind Jones (1986), is something quite other than the subcultural phenomenon of lesbian romance reading. I will, however, rely on some of the insights provided by their impressive studies. Radway's description of the 'institutional matrix' within which heterosexual romances are produced has served as an example to sketch the history of the lesbian romantic story. Modleski's perceptive treatment of the different layers underlying romantic fiction (and other popular women's genres) has convinced me of the interrelatedness of history, politics and narratives.

As Her Hand Crept Slowly up Her Thigh: Ann Bannon and the Politics of Pulp

Lesbian pulp novels are not typically the stuff of literary criticism, even in this time of post-structuralist anything goes. And the methodologies and theoretical approaches common to literary criticism be it reception theory or ideology critique or even deconstruction seem somehow inadequate or inappropriate to so marginalized and low-brow a cultural product. Typically, even cultural analysis that looks at this sort of culture does so with a language and technique that, while often insightful, serves to distance the reader from the popular content of the object. In other words, the potentially subversive stuff of culture is rendered abstract and safe through its aestheticization in high culture criticism. The attempt here is not, of course, to discard criticism altogether but rather to re-position its relevance to the being analyzed. Too often feminist critics, in attempting to keep up with the newest in post-thought, lose sight of our own (feminist) insights about the relationship between theory and methodology: analyzing objects that comes out of our own experience as women. To understand the lesbian novels of Ann Bannon then, we must do more than randomly apply a critical method upon a text. Our critical method should, it seems to me, be developed to ask questions that are linked to the reality of these novels as part of lesbian culture. To instrumentally apply a method of analysis to a lesbian text without at the very least sensitizing that method to its lesbian object is to miss the point. A sensitized and political method might experience these novels as expressive of the textures and tastes that comprise the lived experience of lesbians. For all their wild improbability, these novels are records, traces of an existence deeply submerged and suppressed. The radical sensuousness of these pulps mitigates against an analysis that imposes discrete formal categories on a subcultural artifact that cries out for indiscretion. I am making an argument, clearly, for an original reading of Bannon's books that is guided more by explicit feminist concerns than by a set of formalist codes. That my political interpretation is guided by feminist concerns will be readily apparent in the pages to come. The themes of desire and sexuality are not arbitrary categories of analysis but rather derive from my own positioned and political reading as well as from the social context in which these novels were written as well as received. For a political interpretation means fundamentally that we