As many theorists have pointed out, queer history is often erased within traditional, heteronormative historiography. Consequently, historians cannot recount the gay and lesbian past by conventional techniques of evidence and documentation. Instead they recuperate and reinvent queer history using strategies normally associated with the writing of fiction. This thesis examines three works of late twentieth century lesbian historical fiction that rewrite the past in order to render visible queer intimacy, sexuality, and desire. Jeanette Winterson's The Passion (1987), Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet (1998), and Helen Humphreys' Leaving Earth (1997) employ spectacularly visible lesbian heroines who symbolically reverse lesbian invisibility in mainstream historical narratives by displaying themselves as public figures or stage performers. There are ongoing debates in contemporary queer theory and historiography about the extent to which it is politically useful to privilege highly visible individuals when recovering the marginalized gay and lesbian past. Winterson's, Waters', and Humphreys' novels enact this debate, and exemplify a trend in contemporary lesbian historical fiction in which lesbian heroines are empowered by their ability to control their own visibility and to ensure the perpetuation of their history.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2006. / Supervisor: Lorraine York. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 277-287).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2006. / Supervisor: Lorraine York. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 277-287).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-164). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

No description available.

The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine how Swedish public libraries approach and regard lesbian pulp fiction as a genre, from both a historical and modern perspective, and also to visualize and critique the surrounding discourses that influence the perception and reception of the genre. The method is twofold and consists of qualitative interviews as well as discourse analysis inspired by Foucault. The data consists of interviews with three librarians responsible for library collections, selection and purchase of new library materials which is combined with a survey reading of Biblioteksbladet, the periodical of Svensk Biblioteksförening, from 1945–1990. Michel Foucaults theories on discourses and the principles and mechanisms of exclusion, and Pierre Bourdieus theories on taste and distinction, guide the analysis. The analysis focuses to a great extent on discursive patterns, especially concerning the relationship between popular and quality fiction, and components of Bourdieus field theory and how this contributes to the creation of taste through distinction. Throughout the analysis possible explanations regarding the position of lesbian pulp fiction are given which covers areas from classification and interpretation of literary genres to quality assessment, selection and purchase of literature. The results of the study shows that lesbian pulp fiction is quite invisible in Swedish public libraries which is mainly seen as an effect of discursive practices that surround and influence the genre such as the societal and historical view of homosexuality but also the view on popular literature. Conclusions are that librarians are not making conscious exclusions of lesbian pulp fiction per se, they are if anything quite unaware of the genre’s existence, but that the practices that shape the field of public libraries has contributed to the genre’s position. The study is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science written at Uppsala university.

Not available / text

My dissertation offers a new look at how women authors used popular genres to negotiate their economic, artistic, and sexual autonomy, as well as their national and imperial identities, in the context of the changes brought by modernity. As medical science and popular media attempted to delineate women’s sexual natures, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Winifred Holtby, Kate O’Brien, and Molly Keane created narratives which challenged not only psychoanalytic proscriptions about the need for sexual satisfaction, but traditional ideas about women’s inherent modesty. They absorbed, revised, and occasionally rejected outright the discourses of sexology in order to advocate a more diffuse sensuality; for these writers, adventure, travel, independence, creativity, and love between women provided satisfactions as rich as those ascribed to normative heterosexuality. I identify a history of queer sexuality in both Irish and English contexts, one which does not conform to emergent lesbian identity while still exceeding the limits of heteronormativity. / text