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In the sapphic launderette play Spin Cycle, the washers are loaded and so are the questions. Penned by Zofia Zerphy, Spin Cycle is an absurdist exploration of intense connections, queer memory and lesbian storytelling. In this summer special, I am joined by Zofia and Rhiannon Bell, who play the main characters and speak to me about crafting a play in queer community, why queer narratives can operate in different realms of sense and meaning making, and why exploring flawed characters is vital to queer and trans representation.

References:
Berserk Theatre
The L Word
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Mitski’s “Washing Machine Heart”
Act On Tap
Bethan Rose
Edinburgh Dyke Bar
Ros Watt’s Trans People Are Awful
Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness
Joe Carstairs

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Zofia and Rhi speak about the different responses queer and non-queer audience members had to the play’s absurdist elements. What do they say about queer narratives making sense and what is your take? 2. Which trope(s) of sapphic storytelling do we mention in the episode? 3. We speak about Spin Cycle using memory and forgetting in queer ways. What could queer memory mean? What does it mean to you? 4. Rhi highlights the importance of showing flawed trans and nonbinary characters on stage. How do you feel about this? Can you think of another example of a flawed LGBTQIA+ character in literature or theatre? 5. Have you ever seen yourself represented on stage? What was that like?

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Who coined the term cis and why are some people calling it a slur? Amazing return guest Perry Zurn joins me to discuss what the concept of cis does, why it’s helpful to look at its origins and etymology and where it might oversimplify the project of gender. Not one to be missed!

References:
Perry Zurn’s Cisgender: Disorienting a Category (Duke UP, 2026)
Perry Zurn’s How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University (Duke UP, 2024)
John Hollister
Riva Lehrer’s Golem Girl
Marquis Bey’s Cistem Failure: Essays on Blackness and Cisgender (Duke UP, 2022)
Stephanie Clare’s Nonbinary: A Feminist Autotheory (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Jonathan Ned Katz’s The Invention of Heterosexuality (1995)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What does cis mean? 2. Which term is older: cis or trans? When does the term cis emerge? 3. Which community coined the term cisgender and why? 4. What is Perry saying about simplified notions of cis and which example does he give? 5. How does Perry put disability and race in dialogue with cisness and transness?

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From popstars to rugby players, this episode has all the Welsh queer icons you could want. Emily Garside teaches me about H from Steps, Russel T. Davies, the Ladies of Llangollen and so many other fascinating LGBTQIA+ people from Wales. We talk about whether wondering if you’re queer enough is similar to wondering if you’re Welsh enough and how the prejudice against ‘sounding gay’ relates to sounding Welsh.

Books by Emily Garside:
Rainbow Wales: Queer Icons Past and Present (Calon, May 2026)
Out of the Box: Queer TV through the Decades (Manchester University Press, January 2027)
Gay Aliens and Queer Folks: How Russell T Davies Changed TV (Calon, 2023)
Seasons of Love: Why Rent Matters (Applause)
You Are My Happy Ending: Schitt’s Creek and the Legacy of Queer TV (Applause)
Angels in America at the British National Theatre (McFarland)
Love that Journey for me: The Queer Revolution of Schitt’s Creek (404 Ink)

Other References:
Russel T Davies
Ladies of Llangollen
Edward II.
Piers Gaveston
Steps
Ian ‘H’ Watkins
Elliot Page
Luke Evans
Eisteddfod
Cymru
Marquess of Anglesey
Viscount Tredegar
Norena Shopland
Jan Morris’ Conundrum
Ivor Novello
Colin Jackson
Connie Orff
Alun Saunders
Natha Wyburn
Queer As Folk
It’s A Sin
Lisa Power
Section 28
@emigarside (IG)
https://thenerdynotebook.substack.com/
https://emilygarside.com/
Surrey Rainbow Choir
https://www.rainbowchoir.co.uk/

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Is there such a thing as a cohesive Welsh queer identity? What are Emily’s thoughts on this and what is her approach? 2. Emily speaks about parallels between attitudes towards Welsh and queer identities. Which one does she discuss? Is there a facet of your identity that feels similar yet different from your queerness? 3. What is an eisteddfod? Please look it up if you’re not familiar because we forgot to explain the term in the episode. 4. Have you ever askes yourself whether you are queer or trans enough? How do we speak about this question in this episode? 5. Who was your favourite person to learn about in the episode?

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If you have not read A Black Queer History of the United States yet, you are so lucky to have this fantastic book in your future! And lucky for me that this is also an excellent opportunity to speak to two dream guests: C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost speak about gender trouble in the Black queer archives, how Black and queer histories need to be thought together and why grounding oneself in community is part of what it means to survive.

References:
C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost’s A Black Queer History of the United States (2026)
C. Riley Snorton’s Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (U of Minnesota Press, 2014)
C. Riley Snorton’s Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (U of Minnesota Press, 2017)
Darius Bost’s Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence (U of Chicago Press, 2019)
Cathy J. Cohen “Deviance as Resistance: A New Research Agenda for the Study of Black Politics” (2014)
William Cathay/Cathay Williams
Phil Black
The Funmakers Ball
Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman
Erica R. Edwards
Marsha P. Johnson
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR)
Combahee River Collective
National Black Justice Coalition
“Black Lesbian Thought” with Briona Simone Jones
@c.rileysnorton
dbost@uic.edu
@windycitybq
Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s Neptune Frost
Jellicle Ball
Essex Hemphill’s Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why do Black and queer history need to be thought of together? How are they sometimes separated? 2. Darius speaks about the book having two parts. What is each about? 3. Riley speaks about gender and sexual deviance as forms of survival or escape. What does this mean? Can you name an example? 4. What does Darius say about the relationship between civil rights ideology and non-normative gender? 5. Why is it important to speak about collectives as well as individuals when engaging with Black queer history?

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Who designs the rules of inclusion? Kevin Guyan has given a lot of thought to this question in his excellent book Rainbow Trap, which thinks through the many categories that fall under the rainbow umbrella and how they might include, exclude, limit, and even harm the people they are supposed to benefit. Listen now to learn more about why our future might hold fewer boxes to tick and how we can break boundaries to get there.

References:
Kevin Guyan’s Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion (2025)
Kevin Guyan’s Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action (2022)
https://kevinguyan.com/
@kevin.guyan on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/kevin.guyan/)
kguyan on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kguyan/)
Gender Recognition Reform Bill
Gender Recognition Act
Kit Heyam
Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star – in particular, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (1999)
Ian Hacking
Looping effect
Sara Ahmed – in particular, On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012)
A Black Queer History of the United States (2026, C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost)
Gender and Sexuality Data Lab (https://gensexdatalab.com/)
Queer Data Showcase
Mystika Glamoor
Dean Spade’s Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law (2011)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is a rainbow trap? Have you ever been trapped in one? 2. Kevin speaks about ‘the dark sides of being included’. What does this mean? Have you experienced this form of categorisation? 3. What does Kevin think about in the chapter on health and fitness? 4. How are labels multidirectional? What are ‘looping effects’ in this context? 5. What is a box breaker? Are you one?

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We’re all still here, still ready to love, and to build community with trans books! In this extremely fun conversation, Cat Fitzpatrick talks about her poetry, her work with Little Puss Press, and a person called Crabstick. If you are wondering how all these things can go together and if you want to hear a fantastic poet speak about her favourite lyric forms as well as her favourite forms of activism, this episode is for you.

References:
Cat Fitzpatrick’s The Dinner Party (Seven Stories Press, 2026)
Little Puss Press
Cat Fitzpatrick’s The Call-Out
Cat Fitzpatrick’s Glamourpuss
Meanwhile, Elsewhere (edited by Cat Fitzpatrick and Casey Plett)
https://www.catfitzpatrick.net/
@intermittentcat
Chiara Pellegrini
The Earl of Rochester
“A Letter from Artemesia in the Town to Chloe in the Country”
Richard Barnfield
Uxorious
Virgil
Aphra Behn
Gwen Aube’s Missed Connections with Tall Girls
Violet Allen’s Plastic, Prism, Void
Sybil Lamb’s I’ve Got a Time Bomb
Jeanne Thornton’s A/S/L
Shola von Reinhold’s Lote
Imogen Binnie’s Nevada
Sophia Dahlin’s Glove Money
Futurepoems
Joss Barton's Goodbye to a Dream Believed

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Cat and I speak about several poetic forms in this episode. What is Cat’s take on poetic form and the patriarchy? What is yours? 2. Which kinds of love do we speak about in the episode? 3. Cat describes part of her writing process as “I hold on to my feelings until I can make use of them.” Can you relate to this? 4. What does Cat mean when she talks about books as time capsules? 5. How can literature help us build community and engage with trans rights?

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If you want to know what Roxy wants, this episode is a great place to start. Diva’s fabulous editor in chief joins us for a chat about her lovely memoir What A Girl Wants, which is just as heartwarming, insightful and fun as the author herself. Roxy and I speak about femme invisibility, queer timelines, body image and lesbian breakups. Not one to be missed.

References:
DIVA
Out and Wild
Zoe Berryman
Caitlin Moran
Dolly Alderton
Ann Bannon’s I Am A Woman (1959)
The Beebo Brinker Chronicles
Carol
Cate Blanchett
Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Roxy’s book regularly employs direct address of the reader. What does Roxy say about this? Why was this formal feature important for writing this book? 2. Roxy and I speak about queered timelines. What do we suggest and what do you think about this topic? 3. How does Roxy speak about approaching chronology and structure in memoir?

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The final episode of the Queer Forms and Pronouns series got a bit more personal than I expected. The incredible Teagan Bradway and I speak about misgendering ourselves, giving the gift of language to our loved ones and why not just the function but also the beauty of gender-nonconformity pronouns is politically and personally significant. We speak about my anxieties about it pronouns and how this plays out in different genres from speculative fiction to memoir. Teagan’s insights into narrative agency and pronominal shifts are incredibly helpful in taking one last deep dive into the world of pronouns.

This conversation is part of a miniseries that accompanies my book Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Nonconformity in Anglophone Literature (Oxford University Press, 2026). I hope you like hearing more from your host, but not to worry: we will be back to our usual format after this one.

References:
Bradway, Teagan. "Queer Narrative Theory and the Relationality of Form." PMLA 136.5 (2021): 711-727.
Bradway, Teagan, and Elizabeth Freeman, eds. Queer Kinship: Race, Sex, Belonging, Form. Duke University Press, 2022.
Bradway, Teagan. "Introduction: Queer Metarelationality." differences 35.3 (2024): 1-13.
Bradway, Teagan. "Queer Formalism." The Palgrave Handbook of Feminist, Queer and Trans Narrative Studies. Palgrave, 2025. 95-109.
https://teaganbradway.com/
Les Feinberg
Torrey Peters’ Stag Dance
Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot
Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood
Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer
Diane Watt
Jack Halberstam
Dana Luciano
Mel Y. Chen
Spivak pronouns (E/em/eir)
Isaac Fellman
Andrea Gibson
Hekanaho, Laura. "A thematic analysis of attitudes towards English nonbinary pronouns." Journal of Language and Sexuality 11.2 (2022): 190-216.
Mattheis, Lena. "Nonbinary Narration." The Palgrave Handbook of Feminist, Queer and Trans Narrative Studies. Palgrave, 2025. 25-39.
Vera Nuenning
Corinna Assmann

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What does narrative agency have to do with pronouns? How might narrative point of view affect pronouns? 2. Why do we discuss genre? What could the implications of discussing pronouns in speculative fiction be? 3. How can ‘it’ pronouns allow us to think about gender, personhood and humanness? 4. What are Spivak pronouns? You may want to look this up as we only mention them very briefly. 5. What do Lena and Teagan think about mispronouning? 6. Why do we speak about pronouns as a gift that is not always easy to give? How do you feel about sharing your pronouns or learning someone else’s?

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The fantastic Jas Morgan is back for a conversation about pronouns in Two-Spirit literature! We think about how kinship is reflected in language, what role pronouns take on in translation and how they can easily be misunderstood, especially when working across cultures and languages. Our conversation is based on a dialogic chapter of Queer Forms and Pronouns, which I co-wrote with Kai Minosh Pyle.

This conversation is part of a miniseries that accompanies my book Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Nonconformity in Anglophone Literature (Oxford University Press, 2026). I hope you like hearing more from your host, but not to worry: we will be back to our usual format in just a few weeks.

References:
Kai Minosh Pyle
Jas Morgan’s “My Pronouns are Kiy/Kin”
https://web.archive.org/web/20210416065231/https://aabitagiizhig.com/2016/05/13/red-rising-my-pronouns-are-kiy-kin/
Jas Morgan’s nîtisânak
Riot Grrrl
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Wahkohtowin
Joshua Whitehead’s “A Queer Geography of Woundings”
Billy-Ray Belcourt
Lambda Literary Awards
Kin (web series)
Justin Ducharme
Aalayna
Ta’Kaiya Blaney
https://jasmorgan.com/2020/10/25/sewing-circle-kin-web-series/
@notvanishing (IG)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why might pronouns work differently in Two-Spirit literature? 2. What do pronouns have to do with kinship? 3. How are pronouns connected to animacy? 4. We speak about pronouns in translation between languages that attach gendered notions to them or not. How might this affect communication? Are pronouns gendered in your favourite language? 5. What does Jas mean by ‘I am not a metaphor’?

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Come along for a deep dive into mixed pronouns in queer, trans and nonbinary narratives with none other than Sue Lanser, your favourite narratologist’s favourite narratologist. Sue and I talk about why we might need to rethink the concept of gender disguise narratives, where we find mixed pronouns in literary histories and why mixed pronouns often become sensual in literature. My favourite bit: Sue asks me about my personal hero, the Grinch.

This conversation is part of a miniseries that accompanies my book Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Nonconformity in Anglophone Literature (Oxford University Press, 2026). I hope you like hearing more from your host, but not to worry: we will be back to our usual format in just a few weeks.

References
Sue Lanser’s The Sexuality of History
Sue Lanser’s Narrative Theory Unbound
Sue Lanser’s “Trans-forming Narratology” Narrative 32.2 (2024)
Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body
Le Roman de Silence
Michel de Montaigne’s Journal de Voyage
Margaret Cavendish’s Assaulted and Pursued Chastity
Lyly’s Galatea
Chevalièr(e) d’Éon
Alex Myers’ Revolutionary
Deborah Samson
Jenny Fran Davis’ Dykette
Isaac Fellman’s Dead Collections
Spiel, Katta, Os Keyes, and Pınar Barlas. 2019. ‘Patching Gender: Non-Binary Utopias in HCI’. Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, May 2, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3310425.
The Grinch
Dr Seuss
Jim Carrey
Benedict Cumberbatch
Les Feinberg
Maggie Nelson
Harry Dodge
Jen Manion
Dean Spade

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What role does narrative agency play in the difference between external and intrinsic pronoun ascription? 2. Why does Susan suggest that we need to revisit Shakespeare’s and other’s gender disguise narratives? 3. Susan mentions how characters that are perceived as masculine but use she/her are much more frequently ridiculed than characters viewed as feminine who use he/him. Why do you think that is? 4. How has feminism expanded what ‘she/her’ can mean? 5. How does mixing pronouns do similar or different work from singular they? 6. Why does the Grinch, according to Lena, have big they energy?

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It was an incredible honour to have THE Susan Stryker join me for a chat about ambiguous pronouns, trans literature and linguistic creativity. Susan’s wealth of knowledge on pronouns across languages and literary history was incredibly enriching and allowed me to speak about some of my favourite examples of ambiguous pronoun use in literature.

This conversation is part of a miniseries that accompanies my book Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Nonconformity in Anglophone Literature (Oxford University Press, 2026). I hope you like hearing more from your host, but not to worry: we will be back to our usual format in just a few weeks.

References:
Susan Stryker’s “My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix”
Susan Stryker’s Transgender History
Susan Stryker, Stephen Wittle, Aren Aizura (eds) The Transgender Studies Reader
Susan Stryker’s Changing Gender: The History and Future of a Concept (August 2026)
Sara Taylor’s The Lauras
Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s The Sleeping Hermaphrodite (1620)
Teagan Bradway
Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer (2019)
Lal Zimman
Rivers Solomon
Aphra Behn’s “To The Fair Clorinda” and “The Widow Ranter”
Thomas(ine) Hall
Nathaniel Bacon
Mel Y. Chen
Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
Andrea Gibson’s “Your Life”

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Which pronouns are ambiguous when it comes to gender in English? Which ones are ambiguous in your first or favourite language? 2. What creates ambiguity when we use pronouns? How might this ambiguity be productive? 3. Susan explains why gendered pronouns in English function in an unusual way compared to other languages. What is something new you learned about this? 4. We speak about why literature can teach us something about pronoun use that we might overlook when focusing on grammar. What is that? 5. Can you name one of the examples of ambiguous pronoun use in literature we discuss?

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Welcome to a miniseries about gender nonconformity pronouns in literature! In this episode, the amazing linguist Laura Paterson asks me many clever questions about singular they in literature. We talk about the function of pronouns, common misunderstanding about singular they, and neutral versus gender-nonconforming use of this fantastic third person pronoun. Whether you would like reading recommendations (Virginia Woolf, Lamya H, Rae Spoon…) or some insight into what singular they can do in creative and academic writing, this episode might have some answers – or questions – for you.

References

Lena Mattheis’ Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Nonconformity in Anglophone Literature (Oxford University Press, 2026)
Laura Paterson (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Pronouns (Routledge, 2023)
Anna Livia
Lamya H’s Hijab Butch Blues (2023)
Rae Spoon’s Green Glass Ghosts (2021)
Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body (1992)
Anne Garréta’s Sphinx (1986)
Charlie Josephine’s I, Joan (2022)
The Globe
https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/identity-in-i-joan/
Kit Heyam
Laura Paterson and Georgina Turner (eds) Approaches to Discourses of Marriage (Routledge, 2024)
Lal Zimman

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is a pronoun? 2. How does Lena define gender-nonconformity pronouns? 3. Why is it relevant whether a narrator comments on pronoun use or not? Which examples does Lena provide? 4. Which literary texts do Laura and Lena mention? Which one would you like to read and why? 5. What do Laura and Lena discuss about pronouns in academic writing? Do you have an established practice for this?

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What is queer food, you ask? Let’s find out! Alex Ketchum and Megan Elias tell me all about the connections between gender and food, cooking and sexuality, and recipes and community. The amazing book Queers at the Table is a product of the queer food conference Alex and Megan ran in 2024 (returning in 2026!) and consists of essays, stories, comics and endlessly inspiring reflections on queer cooking and intellectual inquiry. Lesbian chefs, feminist cafes, queer community cookouts – this episode has them all.

References:
Queers at the Table (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025)
Alex Ketchum’s Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (Concordia UP, 2022)
https://press.library.concordia.ca/projects/ingredients-for-revolution (open access)
Megan Elias’ Food on the Page (Penn Press, 2017)
Queer Food Conference
https://www.queerfoodconference.com/
@queerfoodconference
Alex Ketchum’s How to Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences (Microcosm, 2026)
https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/63461
Alex Ketchum’s Digital Queers and High Tech Gays (MIT Press, 2027)
@dr.alexketchum
http://alexketchum.ca
Alex Ketchum’s Engage in Public Scholarship!: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication (Concordia Uni Press, 2022)
https://press.library.concordia.ca/projects/engage-in-public-scholarship (open access)
https://www.justfeministtechandscholarshiplab.com/
Greggor Mattson
Prism Comics
Queer Food Foundation
The Female Glaze
@thefemaleglaze
The Nonbinarian Bookstore
https://thenonbinarian.gay/
Bishakh Som’s Spellbound
Cait McKinney’s Information Activism: A Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies
The Ripped Bodice
Casey McQuiston’s The Pairing

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How do Megan and Alex define queer food? 2. Megan thinks about what ‘not queer food’ might be and whether we would want to define this. What is your opinion? Is there ‘straight’ food? 3. How is gender connected to food? Were you surprised by anything we mention? 4. What connections do Megan and Alex draw between sexuality and food? 5. Alex and Megan speak a lot about community. Can you name two examples of how community makes food queer? 6. How might food be linked to queer knowledge production?

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The incredible author Lauren J. Joseph joins me to talk about her new book Lean Cat, Savage Cat – out on 26 February 2026. Lauren talks about the genre-bending ambiguity of the novel, about characters that have followed her from the stage to the page, and about writing across languages. We touch on the intricacies of first-person narration, but also on what it’s like to write a novel versus writing a PhD.

References:
Lauren J. Joseph’s Lean Cat, Savage Cat (2026)
Lauren J. Joseph’s At Certain Points We Touch (2022)
Ben Robbins
Alexander Geist
David Bowie
Bryan Ferry
Morrissey
Hildegard von Bingen
Marty Supreme
Timothée Chalamet
Essen
Dortmund
Karstadt
KaDeWe
Romy Haag
Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy: Low, Heroes, Lodger
Narcissus and Echo
Céleste Albaret
Proust
American Psycho
Pedro Lemebel’s My Tender Matador
Jean Genet

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From Christopher Isherwood to Djuna Barnes, some of the most prolific queer writers of the 20th century wrote in exile. Ben Robbins joins me to explain how and why queer writers connected with each other in exile and how (in)voluntary movement shaped their stories. Ben shares some surprising encounters from the archives and paints a picture of some of the locations of queer exile: Berlin, Tangier and Capri.

References:
Networked Narratives: Queer Exile Literature 1900-1969
Funded by the Austrian Science Fund/FWF (Project DOI: 10.55776/P35199)
https://www.uibk.ac.at/projects/networkednarratives/
Ben Robbins’ “‘Marriages ought to be secret’: Queer Marriages of Convenience and the Exile Narrative” JAAAS: Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies, vol. 5, no. 1, Dec. 2023, pp. 100–122, https://doi.org/10.47060/jaaas.v5i1.173.
Networks of Anglophone LGBTQ+ Exile Writers
http://queerexilelit.uibk.ac.at/ Robbins, Ben, and Ralph J. Poole. "Introduction: Queer Ruralisms." AmLit – American Literatures 4.2 (2024): 4-21.
Ben Robbins’ Faulkner's Hollywood Novels: Women between Page and Screen (University of Virginia Press 2024) https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5855/
Queer Second Cities
Maria Sulimma
Ben Robbins’ “Christopher Isherwood in Exile”
https://www.huntington.org/verso/christopher-isherwood-exile
Harry Ransom Center
Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman)
Oscar Wilde
W. Somerset Maugham
E.F. Benson
John Ellingham Brooks
Romaine Brooks
John Ellerman
Robert McAlmon
Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood
Natalie Barney
Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin
Stephen Spender’s The Temple
Jane Bowles’ Two Serious Ladies
W.H. Auden
Patricia Highsmith
Allen Ginsberg
Claude McKay
Thornton Wilder
Ben Robbins. "Space, Sexuality, and Thornton Wilder's Villa Rhabani." Thornton Wilder Journal 5:1, November 2024, pp. 99-119. DOI: 10.5325/thorntonwilderj.5.1.0099
https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/thornton-wilder/article-abstract/5/1/99/392187/Space-Sexuality-and-Thornton-Wilder-s-Villa?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Open access: https://ulb-dok.uibk.ac.at/urn/urn:nbn:at:at-ubi:3-40689
William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch
Alfred Chester’s Looking for Genet: Literary Essays and Reviews
Susan Sontag
Gore Vidal
Henry James
Truman Capote

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How does Ben define ‘exile’? How is this similar to and different from ‘expat’? 2. How does exile relate to class status and financial means? 3. Why are queer networks so important in this context? 4. What does Ben say about exile and (involuntary) movement affecting narrative form? 5. How do you find out where you can safely travel?

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Time for a cross-over! I had the absolute pleasure on being invited to join the Amplified network and appear on their superb podcast. Here is our episode and Amplified's show notes:

"Amplified is an audio blog series about the sounds of scholarship from our team here at the Amplify Podcast Network. This month on Amplified, Stacey Copeland and Hannah McGregor are joined by Lena Mattheis to kick off a brand new series featuring the latest additions to our sustained cohort of podcasters. Lena is the creator and host of Queer Lit, a podcast about LGBTQIA2S+* literature and culture. In this conversation, we reflect on podcasting as a tool for community building and queer scholarly practice, tracing how Queer Lit emerged from Lena's teaching practice and a commitment to accessible feminist and queer knowledge creation."

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What is the queerest thing you did this year? Listen to the festive special to find out how queer our guests and listeners made 2025!

References:
Liz Breslin
How To Read podcast
https://www.howtoreadpodcast.com/elaine-auyoung-one-sided-relationships/
Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Nonconformity in Anglophone Literature (OUP, March 2026)
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/queer-forms-and-pronouns-9780198974116?q=lena%20mattheis⟨=en&cc=gb
Susan Stryker
Louise Siddons’ Good Pictures Are A Strong Weapon
https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517910730/good-pictures-are-a-strong-weapon/
Category is Books (Glasgow)
Lighthouse Books (Edinburgh)
The Bookish Type (Leeds)
Kit Heyam
Royal Vauxhall Tavern
All Of Us Strangers
Nick Cherryman
European Gay Ski Week
Oliver Slate-Green’s The Way Blood Travels
Leah Davidson
Listenqueer.co.uk
Out and Wild
Leilah King
Coast is Queer
Jack Gieseking
Our Dyke Histories podcast
Julie Enszer
Lesbian Lives
Sinister Wisdom
The Essential Poems of Pat Parker (The 87 Press)
Caro de Robertis’ The Palace of Eros
Joelle Taylor’s Maryville
Alison Bechdel’s Spent
Allan Johnson
https://thisisallan.medium.com/elf-and-safety-2b061323dbc1
Flora Johnson’s Christopher Popinkins

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What is the queerest thing you did this year? Listen to the festive special to find out how queer our guests and listeners made 2025!

References:
Happiest Season
Kristen Stewart
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Joe Jukes
https://www.hiss.sydney/
Virginia Gay’s Cyrano
Qtopia Sydney
Queer Britain
@guildfordgaybookclub New House Art Space (Guildford) Juno Dawson’s Stay Another Day Layla McCay’s The Queer Bookshelf: A Reader’s Guide (June 2026) Libro.fm Pillion Arzner @Arznercinema

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Share the queerest thing you did this year by 6 December to be featured on the end-of-year special and for the chance to win a special gift (if you are based in the UK). Send an email or voice recording to queerlitpodcast@gmail.com by 6 December.

I can't wait to hear from you!

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Medusa, Medea, Artemis… we’ve all heard their stories before but what do they sound like when not told by (or centred on) men? Mara Gold, the sapphic scholar, is here to tell us all about these figures and about how there is always more than one side to a story and more than one reading to a myth. Come for the lesbian legends, stay for the witty witches and follow us @queerlitpodcast and @sapphic_scholar.

References

Mara Gold’s Ancient Myths and Legends Without Men (2025)
Mara Gold’s “Rebels Against the Tyranny of Men’: Women Performing Greek Comedy in Early Twentieth-Century Britain” in Women Creating Classics (2025)
https://mara-gold.com/
@sapphic_scholar
Beyond the Binary Pitt Rivers Museum
https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/beyond-the-binary
Ashmolean Museum
Rebellious Bodies audio tour
https://app.smartify.org/en-GB/tours/ashmolean-rebellious-bodies-tour?utm_campaign=ashmoleansmartifywebpage&utm_medium=webpagelink&utm_source=ashmoleanwebsite&utm_content=rebelliousbodiestour
Smartify
Hélène Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975)
Femme fatale
Gorgons
Apotropaic figure
Athena
Hera
Natalie Haynes’ Stone Blind
Madeleine Miller’s Circe
Rosie Hewlett
Pat Barker
Madeleine Miller’s Circe
Sirens
Odyssey
Durham Castle
Hans Christian Andersen
Selkie
Demeter
Penelope
Medea
Maenad
Dionysus
Bacchus
True Blood
Amazon
Atalanta
Nataly Barney
Lesbos-en-Seine
Artemis
Double Slice
https://doubleslice.studio/
Actaeon
Callisto
Zeus
Aphrodite
Jason
Argonauts
Glauce
Suranne Jones
Doctor Foster
Gentleman Jack
Children of Srikandi (2012)
Hector and Hephaestus
Radical Book Fair
Lighthouse Books Edinburgh
The Bookish Type
Caper bookshop
The Magicians
Persephone
Cassandra

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is sapphism? 2. What is classical reception? How is this relevant to Mara’s work? 3. What are the archetypes that Mara uses to structure the book? Which one are you most interested in and why? 4. What does Mara say about Srikandi and Srikandi’s role in LGBTQIA+ activism in Indonesia? 5. How can we draw on ancient myths for queer activism today? What does Mara say about this? What are your thoughts? 6. Do you have a favourite figure from mythology or legends?

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Are you ready to descend into the weird world of queer Gothic writing, spooky sexology, and gay ghouls? Brontë Schiltz is an expert on all of these and so much more. We speak about the televisual Gothic and about several of Brontë’s favourite Victorian writers, including masc heartthrob Vernon Lee. If you’re into fun facts about blood transfusions and half-human, half-snake main characters, this episode is for you.

References:
Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies
Vernon Lee (1856-1935)
Ali Smith
Sarah Waters
Televisual gothic
A Ghost Story For Christmas
M.R. James
“The Dead Room”
Mark Gatiss
The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales
Chris Baldick
Nigel Kneale
Matthew Lewis’ The Monk
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs’ Manor
Sexology
“Plain Reasons Against Sodomy”
Horace Walpole
John Addington Symonds
Dracula
George Haggerty’s Queer Gothic
John Singer Sargent
Clementina Anstruther-Thomson
Affect studies
Vernon Lee’s Hauntings
“A Wicked Voice”
“Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady”
Megan Milks
Ali Smith’s Hotel World
Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies
The Horse Hospital
https://www.thehorsehospital.com/events/miskatonic-televisualgothic

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is the Gothic? What did you know about the Gothic before listening and what did you learn from Brontë? 2. How is the Gothic queer? 3. Why is the Victorian period an interesting time to look at queerness? 4. How does Brontë speak about queerness in relation to illness? 5. What is your favourite spooky story?

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Are you ready to become a showgirl? Poet, scholar, and Swifty extraordinaire Stephanie Burt joins me to talk about Taylor Swift’s musical genius, queer fandom and relationship to femininity. There was simply too much to squeeze into one episode, so make sure to listen to part one first and hear all about the Gaylors, before switching to part two, to learn about Taylor's relationship to femininity, class and race. Stephanie will also tell you why she thought the “You Need To Calm Down” video was a big mistake…

Follow Stephanie and myself at @notquitehydepark and @queerlitpodcast for even more content!

References
Stephanie Burt’s We Are Mermaids (Greywolf Press, 2022)
Stephanie Burt’s Super Gay Poems (2025)
Stephanie Burt’s Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift (Basic Books, 2025)
Stephanie Burt’s “Prayer for Werewolves”
Poetry Unbound
John Donne
Katherine Philips
Geoffrey Chaucer
Walt Whitman
Charlotte Mew
Sarah Records
Heavenly
Tender Trap
Blueboy
Ella Darling
Motown
Carole King
Dolly Parton
“You Belong With Me”
Red
Reputation
Miss Americana (2020)
Lover
Rachel Hartman’s Tess of the Road
Gaylorism
Gaylors and Hetlors
“When Emma Falls in Love”
“All Too Well”
Joe Jonas
Taylor Lautner
Jake Gyllenhaal
“Back to December”
John Mayer
The Life of a Show Girl
Elizabeth Taylor
Katharine Hepburn
Ophelia Hamlet
Julia Serano
Frozen
Mononormativity
Evermore
“Tis The Damn Season”
The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection
“Christmases When You Were Mine”
Crass
Grace Petrie
Taylearning podcast
“Clara Bow”
Britney Spears
Miley Cyrus
“You Need to Come Down”
Adeem the Artist
Journey to Fearless
Lara Heimert
@notquitehydepark
Rachel Gold’s In the Silences
Imogen Binnie’s Nevada
X-Men Gold 30
D.A. Powell
Team Dresch’s Captain My Captain
Slater Kinney
Heartbreak High
Sex Education
Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How does Stephanie speak about the relationship between poetry, lyrics and music? Where does this become relevant in Taylor Swift’s work? 2. What does the term ‘Gaylor’ refer to and why are there so many of them? 3. We speak about sapphic forms in this episode. What makes a form sapphic for you? 4. What is feminophobia and why could being femme be read as giving up power? How does this relate to trans femininity? 5. What does Stephanie suggest about the representation of class in the “You Need To Calm Down” video? 6. Why does Stephanie stress that Taylor knows that she is white? How does Stephanie describe Taylor’s engagement with race and the music of Black women? 7. Does Taylor’s music speak to you? Why or why not?

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Are you ready to become a showgirl? Poet, scholar, and Swifty extraordinaire Stephanie Burt joins me to talk about Taylor Swift’s musical genius, queer fandom and relationship to femininity. There was simply too much to squeeze into one episode, so make sure to listen to part one first and hear all about the Gaylors, before switching to part two, to learn about Taylor;s relationship to femininity, class and race. Stephanie will also tell you why she thought the “You Need To Calm Down” video was a big mistake…

Follow Stephanie and myself at @notquitehydepark and @queerlitpodcast for even more content!

References
Stephanie Burt’s We Are Mermaids (Greywolf Press, 2022)
Stephanie Burt’s Super Gay Poems (2025)
Stephanie Burt’s Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift (Basic Books, 2025)
Stephanie Burt’s “Prayer for Werewolves”
Poetry Unbound
John Donne
Katherine Philips
Geoffrey Chaucer
Walt Whitman
Charlotte Mew
Sarah Records
Heavenly
Tender Trap
Blueboy
Ella Darling
Motown
Carole King
Dolly Parton
“You Belong With Me”
Red
Reputation
Miss Americana (2020)
Lover
Rachel Hartman’s Tess of the Road
Gaylorism
Gaylors and Hetlors
“When Emma Falls in Love”
“All Too Well”
Joe Jonas
Taylor Lautner
Jake Gyllenhaal
“Back to December”
John Mayer
The Life of a Show Girl
Elizabeth Taylor
Katharine Hepburn
Ophelia Hamlet
Julia Serano
Frozen
Mononormativity
Evermore
“Tis The Damn Season”
The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection
“Christmases When You Were Mine”
Crass
Grace Petrie
Taylearning podcast
“Clara Bow”
Britney Spears
Miley Cyrus
“You Need to Come Down”
Adeem the Artist
Journey to Fearless
Lara Heimert
@notquitehydepark
Rachel Gold’s In the Silences
Imogen Binnie’s Nevada
X-Men Gold 30
D.A. Powell
Team Dresch’s Captain My Captain
Slater Kinney
Heartbreak High
Sex Education
Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How does Stephanie speak about the relationship between poetry, lyrics and music? Where does this become relevant in Taylor Swift’s work? 2. What does the term ‘Gaylor’ refer to and why are there so many of them? 3. We speak about sapphic forms in this episode. What makes a form sapphic for you? 4. What is feminophobia and why could being femme be read as giving up power? How does this relate to trans femininity? 5. What does Stephanie suggest about the representation of class in the “You Need To Calm Down” video? 6. Why does Stephanie stress that Taylor knows that she is white? How does Stephanie describe Taylor’s engagement with race and the music of Black women? 7. Does Taylor’s music speak to you? Why or why not?

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Our favourite feminist killjoy is back! Sara Ahmed joins me to talk about her brand-new book No Is Not A Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining. In her first ever (how special are we) public conversation about the book, Sara speaks about becoming a feminist ear and a complaint collector, sharing stories of her own complaints as well as those shared with her in community. Explaining how the power of complaining lies in creativity and collectivity, Sara shows why saying no is a powerful queer method.

References:
Sarah Ahmed’s No Is Not A Lonely Utterance (Allen Lane, 2025)
Sarah Ahmed’s The Feminist Killjoy Handbook (Penguin, 2023)
Sarah Ahmed’s Complaint! (Duke, 2021)
Sarah Ahmed’s What’s the Use (Duke, 2019)
Sarah Ahmed’s On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (Duke, 2012)
Onomatopoeia
Jean Porcelli
Race Relations Amendment Act
CARD Complaint Against Racial Discrimination
Kennetta Hammond Perry’s London is the Place for Me: Black Britons, Citizenship and the Politics of Race (2018)
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/london-is-the-place-for-me-9780190909949?cc=gb⟨=en&
Heather Love’s Feeling Backward
Chelsea Watego’s “Always Bet On Black (Power)” (2021)
https://meanjin.com.au/essays/always-bet-on-black-power/

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is a feminist ear? How might you become one? 2. We speak about the role of energy in complaining. Where can energy come from or disappear to? To quote Sara: ‘puff, puff’ 3. How does Sara define institutional fatalism and why might it be an illusion? 4. What makes complaint a queer method? 5. This is a question from Sara’s book: What is the first complaint you remember making? How do you feel about it now?

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How many times have you watched the sweaty lesbian fever dream that is Love Lies Bleeding? As you might be able to guess from this episode, Michelle Devereaux and I have stopped counting. Michelle is a feminist film-philosophy expert who joins me to talk about Rose Glass’s super queer neo noir, the interplay of genre conventions and gender dynamics, and all the fun intertexts and easter eggs that we found in Love Lies Bleeding. Whether you’re into bodybuilding and gender transgression or lesbian romance against all odds, this episode is for you.

References
Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Devereaux, Michelle. "Suspicious Minds and Dead Bodies: Queer Romance and Skepticism in Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding." Film Quarterly 78.2 (2024): 24-32.
Devereaux, Michelle. The Stillness of Solitude: Romanticism and Contemporary American Independent Film. Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
Devereaux, Michelle.“‘A lot of people are creative’: Process, Perfectionism and the Everyday Sublime in Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up and First Cow”. Kim Wilkins and Bruce Isaacs, eds. A24: Culture, Aesthetics, Identity. Edinburgh University Press, 2026 (expected).
Devereaux, Michelle.“Inherited Trauma, Postcolonial Scepticism and the Harmony of Voice in Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale”. Film-Philosophy and Australian Cinema. Saige Walton and Matilda Mroz, eds. Edinburgh University Press, 2026 (expected).
Devereaux, Michelle and Lash, Dominic (eds.). Love, Desire and Stanley Cavell. London: Routledge, 2026 (expected).
MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture: www.maifeminism.com
Russian Doll
Sofia Coppola
Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. Harvard University Press, 1981.
Cavell, Stanley. Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman. Harvard University Press, 1996.
Comedies of Remarriage
Screwball Comedy
Out and Wild
Sleater-Kinney
Bristol Butch Bar
Lindner, Katharina. Film Bodies: Queer Feminist Encounters with Gender and Sexuality in Cinema. Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
Bound (1996)
The Incredible Hulk
Kristen Stewart
Twilight
Pumping Iron II: The Women (1985)
Bev Francis David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) and Lost Highway (1997)
Winkie’s Diner
Lauren Berlant’s epistemic frenzy
Teresa de Lauretis
michelledevereaux@bsky.social
Instagram: @michelleldevereaux
Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up (2022)
Michelle Williams
Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio (1996)
Tilda Swinton
Sean Bean

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is Love Lies Bleeding about and why does Michelle suggest it might be more about gender than about sexuality?
2. How does Michelle describe Lindner’s ‘space of transgender potential’? Can you think of an example for this?
3. Which genres does Michelle mention to discuss and describe Love Lies Bleeding? How are these genres queered in the film?
4. What role does the setting play in the film? How might this relate to the ‘space of transgender potential’?
5. What is your favourite lesbian and/or trans film and why?

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If you can’t find me, I’m probably still browsing shelves of queer joy at Lighthouse, Edinburgh’s superb radical bookshop. The delightful owner Mairi Oliver took some time to chat with me about the long history of radical and queer bookshops that have come before and exist alongside this absolute gem of a queer space. We speak about queer spaces changing hands and transforming, rather than disappearing, about the magic of queer and trans book events, and about why radical booksellers are so important for local community.

References:
Word Power
Elaine Henry
Constant Reader Bookshop
Lavender Menace
West & Wilde
Sigrid Nielson
Bob Orr J
une Thomas’s A Place of One’s Own
Jane Cholmeley’s A Bookshop of One’s Own
Silver Moon Bookshop
James Ley’s Love Song To Lavender Menace
Naomi Klein
Sara Ahmed
Radical Book Fair
Category is Books (Glasgow)
Gay’s The Word (London)
Housmans (London)
Five Leaves (Nottingham)
Alliance of Radical Booksellers
https://www.radicalbooksellers.co.uk/
Bread and Roses Award
Jake Hall’s Shoulder to Shoulder: A Queer History of Solidarity, Coalition and Chaos
N.S. Nuseibeh’s Namesake

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Mairi speaks about how Lighthouse builds on a lineage of queer spaces. How do you feel about queer spaces transforming versus disappearing? 2. In this context, we also speak about the higher expectations for queer spaces. Have you experienced this? Do you think queer spaces should be held to a higher standard? What is the effect of this? 3. When we speak about the relationship between readers, booksellers and authors, Mairi makes some interesting points about how the role of writers is changing. What struck you as particularly important here? 4. Mairi ends the episode with a note on the urgency with which we need to address current political discussions. How can books and bookshops help us do this?

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What makes Hong Kong queer? Alvin K. Wong joins me to speak about how queer and decolonial thought can help us better understand Hong Kong and its relation to the Sinophone world, to Eurocentric queer theory, and to global protest culture. Alvin speaks about queer and trans photography, films and novels from Hong Kong and sprinkles in some excellent theory reading recommendations. Listen now to learn more about Hong Kong and why it is such a frequent site of (unruly) comparison.

References:
Wong, Alvin. Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone (Duke UP, 2025)
Wong, Alvin.“Transgenderism as a Heuristic Device: On the Cross-historical and Transnational Adaptations of the Legend of the White Snake,” in Transgender China, ed. Howard Chiang (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 127-158.
https://complit.hku.hk/index.php/faculty/alvin-wong/
akhwong@hku.hk
Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures
Society of Sinophone Studies
Michel Foucault
Judith Butler
Rey Chow
Ackbar Abbas
Umbrella Movement in 2014
Milton Friedman
Roderick Ferguson
José Esteban Muñoz
Queer of colour critique
Gayatri Gopinath’s Impossible Desires (Duke UP, 2005) and Unruly Visions (Duke UP, 2018)
Emily Apter’s The Translation Zone (Princeton UP, 2006)
Nelson Tang Chak-man’s Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? (2019-20)
Ann Stoler
Jacques Derrida
Anjali Arondekar
Wong Bik-wan’s Lienü tu 烈女圖 (Portraits of martyred women, 1999)
Ma Ka Fai’s Long tou feng wei 龍頭鳳尾 (Once Upon A Time in Hong Kong, 2016)
Lisa Lowe
Scud
Mak Yan Yan’s Butterfly Jun Li’s Tracey (2018)
W v. Registrar of Marriages
A Woman is A Woman
Mimi Wong
Chen Ran’s A Private Life

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What happened on 1 July 1997? Why was 2019 a central year in Hong Kong’s history? 2. Why is Hong Kong such a frequent site of comparison? What makes Hong Kong (seem) exceptional? 3. What does Alvin observe about Eurocentrism in queer studies? Which other power dynamics does he put this in relation with? 4. Alvin speaks about juxtaposing different types of texts. What does he juxtapose and why? 5. Several of Alvin’s reading recommendations have been published in translation. How often do you read translated texts?

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You know I love a queer bookshop and this Glaswegian dream of a queer space is absolutely delightful. Bug and Fin started Category is Books in 2018 to create the kind of space they were craving in their own neighbourhood. As the name promises, Category is Books has some exquisite shelving categories: from ‘Dyke Aching’ to ‘Trans Lit’ to the extensive poetry and theory sections, Bug and Fin show off their excellent taste on their shelves. In the recording, you can hear just how popular the shop is and how many people from near and far love to stop by for a browse and a chat. I’m telling you: this is a real treasure.

References:
Dr Eamon McCarthy (new favourtite person)
Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities
https://www.sgsah.ac.uk/
Section 28
Kelly Gardiner
Adrian’s Bar
Pluto Q Community Reading Room
https://www.plutoq.com/
Hazel Jane Plante’s Little Blue Encyclopedia
Sam Szabo’s Enlightened Transexual Comix
Shola von Reinhold’s Lote

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why do we need specialist bookshops? Why did Bug and Fin want to open one? 2. Why do Bug and Fin mention Section 28? Please look this term up if you are not familiar. 3. What is your favourite category, section or genre in a bookshop? 4. Why should you check Category is Books’ opening times before you go on your own queer pilgrimage there?

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What do transitions have to do with the nation state? More than you think! Ava Kim joins me to speak about how conceptions of gender are deeply (and problematically) entwined with the nation. Ava speaks about powerful examples of transition narratives from Chile, Vietnam and Argentina to illustrate this and gives us a sneak peek into her forthcoming book on trans genre.

References:
Ava Kim’s Still / Life: Trans Genre and the Politics of Anti-Development (forthcoming)
Ava Kim’s “The Future is Child’s Play” GLQ (2025)
Davy Knittle
Mellon Foundation
Christoph Hanssmann
Stem the Tide: Trans Liberation in an Age of Fascism
Travesti
Nyke Slawik
Lucía Puenzo’s XXY (2007)
Marlene Wayar
Mauro Cabral Grinspan
Winnicott’s space of play
Paz Errázuriz
Gina Apostol’s Insurecto
Jessica Hagedorn’s Dream Jungle and Dogeaters
Trans subterfuge
Balangiga
Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman/ Una Mujer Fantástica

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Are you familiar with the term travesti? Please look it up and find a helpful definition. 2. Which forms of transition does Ava talk about? How do they relate to one another? 3. In how far is transition a narrative form? What does this have to do with the nation as a form? 4. How does Ava define trans subterfuge? 5. What are some of the connections between nation and gender Ava and I speak about? Can you think of others? Have you ever been affected by any of them?

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Coming to you live from the Spoken Word stage at Out and Wild, the UK’s biggest festival for lesbian, bi, trans and queer women and those who are non-binary! This conversation with the delightful Leilah King has everything you could hope for: laughing, rhyming, swooning, and a whole lot of poetry reading. Tune in to hear Leilah speak about gender nonconformity in football, her journey as a neurodivergent performance poet, and how being half-Iranian affects her experience as a queer woman.

CW: mental health, manic state, gendered violence

References:
Midnight Picnics in Tehran (2019)
We Are Hungry for Androgyny (2023)
Polari Press
Mary Oliver
Sam Kerr
Audre Lorde’s Zami
Travis Alabanza
John Steinbeck’s East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath
Charles Bukowski
Ivan Coyote’s The Tomboy Survival Guide
James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room
John Betjeman
Philip Larkin
Soft Butch
Time of the Month
Gay on Wye

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Leilah reflects on being a writer as well as a performer. How does performance affect her writing? 2. What was Leilah’s open mic night called and why did she set it up? 3. Who are some of the writers that have inspired Leilah? Who inspires you? 4. Leilah speaks about her intersecting experiences of being queer, neurodivergent and half-Iranian. How does your queerness relate to other parts of your identity?

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Come along on this deep dive into Alison Bechdel’s new autofictional comic novel Spent, that will give you everything from Edward Gorey Easter eggs to Harriet the Spy content. Alison teaches me things about myself (I’m a bottom-up thinker. Who knew!) and reflects on what Alison, the character, learns from finally meeting the much beloved Dykes to Watch Out For on the page. Whether you are a fan of goats, wood chopping, reality TV or Virginia Woolf – this episode has something for every kind of anti-capitalist dyke.

References:
Alison Bechel’s The Secret to Superhuman Strength
Alison Bechel’s Fun Home
Alison Bechel’s Dykes to Watch Out For
Carmen Maria Machado
Karl Marx’s Das Kapital
The Guilty Feminist podcast
Queer Eye
Tidying Up with Marie Kondo
Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
Nicole Coenen
Grant Wood’s American Gothic
Edward Gorey’s The Unstrung Harp
The Gashlycrumb Tinies T
his Queer Book Saved My Life
Jonathan Cape
Foyles
https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/cape-graphic-novels-mini-con
Anna Trench’s Florrie
Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy

Questions you should be able to respond to:
1. What are some of Alison Bechdel’s most well-known texts? 2. How does Alison reflect on intergenerational queer community? 3. In a lesbian version of Queer Eye, what would the five lesbians’ areas of expertise be? 4. If you could fictionalise a detail of your life, what would you invent for yourself?

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The beauty of trans life is that it flourishes in unexpected spaces. This fortnight’s guest Perry Zurn has written a beautiful book about how trans life creates spaces for itself in the cracks, at the edges and in other liminal spaces. We speak about trans life at the university, trans poetics, and the problematisation of trans inclusion. Perry tells me about how he was able to rethink methodologies and the role of the researcher by working with story-led theory. Tune in now to attune yourself to trans thinking, histories and ourchives.

References:
Perry Zurn’s How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University (Duke University Press, 2025)
Perry Zurn and Dani S. Bassett’s Curious Minds: The Power of Connection (MIT Press, 2022)
Ren-yo Hwang
Enoch Page
Jack Gieseking
Andrea Lawlor
Jen Manion
Cavar’s “In Praise of -Less”
https://azejournal.com/article/2022/8/4/in-praise-of-less-transmad-shouts-from-absent-places
Amherst Collee, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and University of Massachusetts Amherst

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What might trans poetics be? How does Perry define this term? 2. Why does Perry like thinking through problems? What are two problems we speak about on the podcast? 3. Perry describes what story-led theory is and how this method is, in a way, the opposite of how philosophy traditionally uses stories. Can you explain what story-led theory is and how it is different from other theory? 4. How does Perry use the term ‘attunement’? 5. Perry explains finding thematic clusters such as pebble, dust and glue. What is an object or entity you associate with trans life?

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Please listen to this super special episode to meet Mark King from Queer Britain and also to hear all about the upcoming sold-out launch of ListenQueer, the accessible LGBTQIA+ history app!

listenqueer.co.uk
queerbritain.org.uk
https://www.outsavvy.com/event/26049/listenqueer-walking-tour-and-app-launch

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Meet Talia Bettcher, the amazing philosopher who gave us canonical essays like “Trapped in the Wrong Theory” and “Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers,” and has now published a paradigm-shifting book about trans philosophy. Talia tells me about why personhood may be overrated, why the existential WTF lead her to this realisation, and how it’s really all about relationships. We also discuss three of Talia’s highly influential concepts: reality enforcement, the wrong body account, and the beyond the binary model.

CW: transphobia, violence, abuse, sexual abuse, sexual abuse while unconscious (from 28 mins)

References:
Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy (University of Minnesota Press, 2025)
Bettcher, Talia Mae. “Trapped in the Wrong Theory: Rethinking Trans Oppression and Resistance” (Signs 39.2, 2014)
Merryleggs, the Magical Pony
Bettcher, Talie Mae. “Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion” (Hypatia 22.3, 2007)
Gwen Araujo
The existential WTF
Reality enforcement
Interpersonal spatiality
María Lugones
Marilyn Frye
John Locke
Peter Singer
Phoria
Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera
Jay Prosser’s Second Skins

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is reality enforcement and how does it express transphobia? 2. What is personhood? Why is it generally perceived as a positive concept? 3. Why does Talia put a focus on relationships instead? 4. Talia speaks about two ways of viewing transness: the “beyond the binary” model and the “wrong body” account. What are these and why is Talia critical of both of them? 5. How can you show up to support trans rights?

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Welcome to a brand-new queer space special! Come along to visit All She Wrote Books, a fabulous queer feminist bookshop, located in Somerville, MA, an area that is historically significant for feminist literary activism. Owner Christina Pascucci-Ciampa tells me about what it was like turning All She Wrote Books from the queer literary pop-up that unicorn dreams are made of into a (yellow) brick (road) and mortar shop and community space. We also learn about Ruby, the bookshop’s Chief Barking Officer, and about what made Christina believe in the magical powers of storytelling.

References:
https://www.allshewrotebooks.com/
@allshewrotebooks
New Words
Kristen Hogan’s The Feminist Bookstore Movement (Duke UP, 2016)
American Booksellers Association
Emma Straub
Books Are Magic
Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt (Carol)
Audre Lorde
Adrienne Rich
bell hooks
Julie Enszer
Sinister Wisdom
Feminist Bookstore News
https://sinisterwisdom.org/FBN
Malinda Lo
Ruby, Chief Barking Officer
https://www.allshewrotebooks.com/friendsofruby
Crafty Queer Studio
https://www.craftyqueerstudio.com/
The Wizard of Oz
Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider
Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House/Her Body and Other Parties
This Queer Book Saved My Life podcast
Lindy West
Sarah Schulman

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Christina speaks about why pop-up bookshops were an important part of All She Wrote’s journey. What are some benefits of a pop-up bookshop? 2. If you could host a book pop-up at any location, where would it be? 3. Why are libraries great? What are some of their limits? 4. Why do we need specialist bookshops? Why are they spaces of activism?

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What does AI have to do with queerness? And how could the use of machine learning affect our lives and our rights as LGBTQIA+ people? Daniella Gáti shares the answers to these questions and more. Daniella is an expert in narrative, creative computing, and brings a unique transdisciplinary perspective to both. We touch on facial recognition, what is happening in Hungary, and speak about common misconceptions about AI.

References:
Gáti, Daniella. ‘Theorizing Mathematical Narrative through Machine Learning’. Journal of Narrative Theory, vol. 53, no. 1, 2023, pp. 139–65.
Gáti, Daniella . “AI, Queerness, and Humanity: How AI Reshapes the World and What We Can Do about It” (8 February, 2025, TedX Talk)
The Palgrave Handbook of Feminist, Queer and Trans* Narrative Studies (Vera Nuenning and Corinna Assman, eds)
Nicola Dinan’s Disappoint Me
Thon (19th century gender-neutral pronoun)
Dennis Baron’s What’s Your Pronoun: Beyond He and She
Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox
Erzsébet Galgóczi’s A törvényen kívül és belül (Another Love)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why might AI not be compatible with queer thought? 2. How can facial recognition affect rights of LGBTQIA+ people? 3. What is a common misconception about AI? 4. What is machine learning? 5. What role might narrative play in all of this?

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Meet Julie Enszer, editor of Sinister Wisdom, dyke poetry superstar, and protector of the lesbian archives. Julie and I speak about shared queer cultures, lesbian feminist publishing, and all of the amazing queer archiving projects Julie is involved in. We also speak about the importance of sharing knowledge and practices of resistance, especially at a time like the present moment. Since Julie is particularly invested in sharing these practices internationally, she is part of the team that is bringing the Lesbian Lives conference to New York in October 2025… Tune in for the details.

References:
https://julierenszer.com/
Sinister Wisdom
https://www.sinisterwisdom.org/
@sinister_wisom (IG)
Julie Enszer’s The Pinko Commie Dyke (Indolent Books, 2024) with illustrations by Isabel Clare Paul
OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture (ed. Julie Enszer and Elena Gross, Rutgers UP, 2022)
The Complete Works of Pat Parkers (ed. Julie Enszer, Sinister Wisdom/A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2016)
Fire-Rimmed Eden: Selected Poems by Lynn Lonidier (ed. Julie Enszer, Sinister Wisdom, 2023)
Sinister Wisdom 128: Trans/Feminisms
Reveal Digital Archives
https://about.jstor.org/revealdigital/
The Lesbian Poetry Archive
http://lesbianpoetryarchive.org/
Feminist Bookstore News Archive
https://www.lesbianpoetryarchive.org/fbn
Carol Seajay
Women in Print Movement
Catherine Nicholson
Harriet Desmoines
Hillary Clinton
Lesbian Lives Conference
Ella Ben Hagai
The Journal of Lesbian Studies
Olu Jenzen
CLAGS (The Centre for LGBTQ Studies, CUNY)
https://www.gc.cuny.edu/clags-center-lgbtq-studies
Matt Brim
Grace Nichols’ The Fat Black Woman’s Poems
Heresies
http://heresiesfilmproject.org/archive/
Cheryl Clarke
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/cheryl-clarke
Tim Retzloff
https://michiganlgbtqremember.com/842-2/
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home
Marilyn Hacker’s Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons (1986)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How do we build lesbian and feminist communities? Which examples does Julie give?
2. What are the Reveal Digital Archives?
3. What types of writing does Sinister Wisdom publish and what would Julie like to see more of? In which year was the journal launched?
4. How does Julie describe the importance of lesbian archives?
5. How might archives help us with lesbian, queer and trans oganising?

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Whether you share them, prefer them or avoid them – pronouns are everywhere. As Laura Paterson, a linguist who specialises in pronouns, tells us, this is a. because they are an essential part of grammar and b. because they are particularly sexy right now. Laura tells us what exactly a pronoun is and why third-person personal pronouns can cause so much controversy, despite the fact that their main job is just to point to things.

References:
Paterson, Laura L. The Routledge Handbook of Pronouns. (Routledge, 2024)
Paterson, Laura L. and Gregory, Ian N. Representations of Poverty and Place: Using Geographical Text Analysis to Understand Discourse. (Palgrave, 2018)
Paterson, Laura L. British Pronoun Use, Prescription, and Processing: Linguistic and Social Influences Affecting 'They' and 'He' (Palgrave, 2014)
Ann Leckie
Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time
Ashley Reilly-Thornton
Susan Stryker
Lal Zimman
Gardelle, Laure. “Pronoun Activism and the Power of Animacy” The Routledge Handbook of Pronouns. (Routledge, 2024)
Journal of Language and Discrimination (https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JLD)
Dennis Baron’s What’s Your Pronoun (Liveright, 2020)
Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists (‎G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2018)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:1. What is a pronoun? 2. Why can pronouns ‘humanise’ characters? 3. Which two uses of singular they do we speak about? Can you think of others? 4. When might the pronoun ‘it’ become important in activism? 5. What are combined pronouns and why are they no longer in fashion? 6. What are some considerations around pronoun sharing that Laura touches on? How do you feel about this?

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Would you like to hear about a 100-year-old public Art nouveau toilet turned queer art gallery? Or about the police station that went from a site of protest and oppression to a place of LGBTQIA+ storytelling? Then this is the episode for you. George Savoulis, director of Qtopia Sydney, is taking us all the way to Australia to tell us all about the magic of queer history, reclaiming of space, and the beauty of queer creativity.

References:

https://qtopiasydney.com.au/
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
Darlinghurst Police Station
Troughman
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras? 2. Where did the 1978 protests take place and what were they about? 3. What is the pink triangle? 4. If you could choose any space to turn into a queer gallery, museum or performance space, which space would that be?

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Join me and Louise Siddons, professor of visual politics par excellence, to learn about Laura Gilpin, the lesbian photographer who spent 30 years creating her book The Enduring Navaho in and with both queer and Navajo community. Louise speaks about the lesbian gaze in Gilpin’s photographs, the lesbian networks of Santa Fe, where Gilpin and her partner lived, and the intersectional methods that Louise brings to writing about these. The thoughtful (and fun) observations Louise shares about Gilpin’s work and voice will stay with you.

Come for the fascinating content, stay for the free writing advice, and get more of both by following @lsiddons.bsky.social and @uni_southampton_wsa (on Instagram). Stay up-to-date about the podcast on Instagram @queerlitpodcast or on Blue Sky (@lenamattheis.bsky.social).

References:
Louise Siddons’ Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon: Laura Gilpin, Queerness and Navajo Sovereignty (University of Minnesota Press, 2024)
Louise Siddons’ Centering Modernism: J. Jay McVicker and Postwar American Art (University of Oklahoma Press, 2018)
Laura Gilpin’s The Enduring Navaho (University of Texas Press, 1968)
Wanda Corn, professor emerita, Stanford University Clarence Hudson White, photographer (American, 1871-1925)
Elizabeth Forster (public health nurse and Gilpin’s partner, American, 1886-1972)
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Helen Langa, emerita, American University
Lesbian gaze
Herbert Blatchford (Diné (Navajo), dates unknown)
Karen-edis Barzman, scholar in residence, Newberry Library
Heather Love, University of Pennsylvania
Mara Gold, University of Oxford
Laura Gilpin, The Summer Shelter of Old Lady Long Salt (published in The Enduring Navaho, gelatin silver print, 1953)
Bean Yazzie (Diné (Navajo), b. 1978)
Refugee Tales
David Herd, University of St. Andrews
Janice Gould’s Doubters and Dreamers (University of Arizona Press, 2011)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Who is Laura Gilpin? 2. Why are lesbian networks relevant in Louise’s thinking about Gilpin’s work? 3. What do you think a lesbian gaze might be? 4. Why is intersectionality such an important topic in this episode, although we only explicitly speak about it at the end? 5. Louise shares some writing advice in the episode. What is your favourite bit of writing advice?

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Do we perhaps deserve the impossible? This is only one of the many beautiful questions Marquis Bey asks in this poem of an episode. Marquis is an exquisite thinker who joins me to speak about the incredible book Black Trans Feminism and share thoughts about why such a feminism is for everyone. Marquis speaks about how literature allows us to imagine new possibilities to exist in the world and see how everything is entangled with everything else. Join me to learn from Marquis, to think about abolition, coalition, fugitivity and traniflesh, and to imagine what the world could be beyond the realistic and the possible.

References:
https://www.marquisbey.com/
Marquis Bey’s Black Trans Feminism (Duke UP, 2022)
Marquis Bey’s Cistem Failure (Duke UP, 2022)
Marquis Bey’s The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Gender (University of Minnesota Press, 2020)
Marquis Bey’s “RE: [No Subject]—On Nonbinary Gender.” Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences (2022)
Saidiya Hartman
Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ M Archive and Undrowned
Lauryn Hill
Denise Ferreira da Silva
Toni Morrison
N.K. Jemisin
Octavia Butler
Rivers Solomon
Andrew Cutrone
Sarah Jane Cervenak
Fred Moten
Roxane Gay
Stefano Harney
Jack Halberstam
Tina Campt
Ralph Ellison
Traniflesh
Emma Heaney
Hortense Spillers’ “Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe”
K. Marshall Green
Treva Ellison
Tranifest Spillers, Hortense, et al. "" Whatcha gonna do?": Revisiting ‘Mama's baby, papa's maybe:’ An American grammar book": A conversation with Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Shelly Eversley, & Jennifer L. Morgan." Women's Studies Quarterly 35.1/2 (2007): 299-309.
Abraham Weil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua_Hm6wePro
Ciara Cremin
Transgender Theory (Bloomsbury)
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/transgender-theory/
A Nonbinary Life (forthcoming) Asterisk (Duke UP)
https://www.dukeupress.edu/series/asterisk-gender-trans-and-all-that-comes-after
Jian Neo Chen
Susan Stryker
Eliza Steinbock
C. Riley Snorton’s Black On Both Sides
Jess Goldberg’s Abolition Time
Frieren

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is Black Trans Feminism? Why is it for everyone? 2. How can identities provide comfort and safety and why is that not always useful? 3. What are the terms Marquis thinks about in relation to allyship? 4. How does Marquis define traniflesh? 5. Which thinkers inform Marquis’ thinking about fugitivity and what is the central metaphor Marquis introduces here? 6. What might be challenging about thinking Black Trans Feminism in the way Marquis proposes it? 7. How do you feel about the impossible and the unrealistic?

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You’ve read Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts but have you heard of the scholar who puts the auto in theories? Meet Alex Brostoff, my new favourite autotheorist. Alex is here to clear up common misconceptions about autotheories and tell us more about biomythography, teoría de la noche, and reading beside. I was also intrigued to learn about intertextual kinship and hear Alex’s (beautifully phrased) thoughts on co-writing and co-translating.

References:

Alex Brostoff and Lauren Fournier (eds) Autotheory (special issue of ASAP/Journal, 2021)
Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan (eds) Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025)
Alex Brostoff’s Unruly Relations: A Critical Reframing of Autotheory (Columbia University Press, forthcoming)
Alex Brostoff and rl Goldberg (eds) Trans Literature (special issue of College Literature, 2025)
Alex Brostoff and rl Goldberg (eds) Reassignments: Trans and Sex from the Clinical to the Critical (Fordham University Press, forthcoming)
Stryker, Susan. "Transgender studies: Queer theory's evil twin." GLQ: A journal of lesbian and gay studies 10.2 (2004): 212-215.
Intertextual kinship in Brostoff’s “An Autotheory of Intertextual Kinship: Ambivalent Bodies in the Work of Maggie Nelson and Paul Preciado.” Special issue, “Dissident Self-Narratives: Radical and Queer Life Writing,” ed. Aude Haffen. Synthesis: An Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies 14 (2021): 91-115.
Kai Minosh Pyle trans*temporal kinship
Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts
Roland Barthes
Paul Preciado’s Testo Junkie
On the Eve of This Death
Freccero, Carla. "The ‘Auto’ of Theory." in Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025)
Foucault
Derrida
Gloria Anzaldúa
This Bridge Called My Back Borderlands/La Frontera
Theory in the flesh
Autohistoria-teoría
Audre Lorde’s Zami
Biomythography
María Moreno’s teoría de la noche (theory of the night)
Sedgwick’s reading beside
Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Steward’s The Hundreds
Heather Love
John Money
Richard Green
Judith Butler’s Who’s Afraid of Gender
Cameron Awkward-Rich
Stephanie Burt
Liz Rose
Nat Rivkin
Jordy Rosenberg
Trish Salah
torrin a. greathouse
Cole Rizki
TSQ
@alextakesfotos (on Instagram)
@AlexBrostoff (on X)
@alexbrostoff.bsky.social (on Bluesky)
TravestiAmara Moira, “Loose Tongues,” a selection from Neca (2021), translated by Jesse Rothbard and edited by Cole Rizki, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (forthcoming, 2025).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is autotheory and why might Alex prefer the plural autotheories? 2. What are some related concepts or theories? 3. Which thinkers do we commonly associate with autotheories? 4. Name at least two texts that Alex posits as central to autotheories. 5. Alex speaks a lot about co-writing. Have you ever experienced “being deep in the trenches of someone else’s sentences”? How do you co-write?

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Are you in the mood for queer joy and lots of panache? Come, come, listen to this episode about Virginia Gay’s Cyrano, an excitingly fun, gender-twisting play that you will love to the moon and back. Virginia talks about why this play resonates so much for queer people, how James McAvoy made her want to write it, and why theatre should always be hot, weird, funny and no more than a 90-minute experience.

To keep up-to-date with this beautiful production, follow @cyranolive and @thatsmsgaytoyou on Instagram. @queerlitpodcast is there too.

References:
Cyrano de Bergerac
Fried Green Tomatoes
Park Theatre London @parktheatrelondon
James McAvoy
Jamie Lloyd
Steve Martin
Roxanne (1987)
Daryl Hannah
L’esprit de l’escalier
Jessica Whitehurst
Joseph Evans
The Handmaiden
Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith
Roxane Gay
Virginia Gay’s Cyrano (Spotify) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Uayz56Nzmdekj1rry7rIP

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Virginia’s Cyrano is what one might call a gender-swap moment. Can you think of other plays, rewrites, or adaptions that alter the story by changing the protagonist’s gender? 2. We use three different pronouns for Cyrano in the episode. Which one is your favourite and why? 3. Virginia speaks about several moments of metatheatre. Can you look up what metatheatre means and name one example? 4. What does ‘l’esprit de l’escalier’ mean and how does it relate to writing? 5. Virginia speaks about the complicity of the audience in problematic stories. Have you ever wanted to apologise to a character? 6. What playlist (or play) gives you queer joy?

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In part two of our festive end-of-year special, you will hear about queer families and mourning, gay novels and book festivals, cargo pants and Vaseline, and lesbians and travel. What’s the queerest thing you did in 2024? And how will you power bottom that in 2025?

References:
Karen Tongson’s Norm Porn
Amber Jamilla Musser
Feminist Keywords podcast
Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Survival is a Promise and Undrowned
Mabel Mundy
Kerstin-Anja Muenderlein
Jack Strange’s Look Up, Handsome
Gay on Wye
Out and Wild
Pigeon Books
London LGBTQ Centre
Bluestockings
Liz’s Book Bar
Sweet Pickle Books
The Ripped Bodice
Gay’s The Word
Happiest Season
Victor Garber

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In part one of our festive end-of-year special, you will hear about queer weddings and Madonna, intersex dinosaurs and PhDs, crafting and queer culture, and how all lesbians do kind of know each other. What’s the queerest thing you did in 2024? And how will you top that in 2025?

References:
Hollis Griffin
Libro.Fm
Ashley Herring Blake’s Make the Season Bright
Bridgerton
Material Girls
Hannah McGregor’s Podcast or Perish and Clever Girl
Jurassic Park
Theoryish
Hannah Ayres
Paola Medina-Gonzalez
Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Mo Moulton
So Mayer’s Truth & Dare
listenqueer.co.uk
Blossom LGBTQ
The Female Glaze
Kit Schuster
Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries
Marquis Bey’s Black Trans Feminism

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Fierce femme dinosaurs, intersex embodiment, Laura Dern – it’s surprisingly easy to read Jurassic Park as a feminist celebration of monstrous queer bodies, at least when you have the magnificent Hannah McGregor by your side. In Hannah’s ‘bookiest book yet,’ we learn about lesbian dinosaurs, the ignorance of white male adventurers, and how and why they’re erotically eviscerated for their flaws. Not to be missed!

If you would like to observe us in the wild, follow us on Instagram: @hkpmcgregor and @queerlitpodcast.

References:
Jurassic Park
Hannah McGregor’s Podcast or Perish
Material Girls
Theodor Rex
Whoopi Goldberg
Emmanuel Levinas
Laura Mulvey
Hannah McGregor’s A Sentimental Education
The Little Mermaid
Ursula
The Last Unicorn
Jen Sookfong Lee (Pop Classic series)
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Femme Shark Manifesto!
Terra nullius
Laura Dern
Verlyn Klinkenborg’s “What Were Dinosaurs For?”
Prehistoric Planet with David Attenborough
Ellen Ripley
Tales of the City
@hkpmcgregor and @ohwitchplease (Instagram)
Making Worlds podcast
https://www.hannahmcgregor.com/
Agatha All Along

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why/How can we read Jurassic Park as a feminist film? 2. What is the ‘monstrous-feminine’? How does Hannah speak about this? Can you find out which other scholar(s) we may associate with this term? 3. What does terra nullius mean? How is this relevant to Hannah’s reading of the film? 4. Lena calls Jurassic Park a queer ecology in the episode. Please name at least two reasons why this term might apply. 5. What does Hannah highlight about Indigenous and decolonial scholarship in relation to Jurassic Park? 6. How do you feel about Laura Dern?

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Have you thought to yourself recently: How come trans literature is having such a moment right now? Then this episode is for you. Sabine Sharp, editor of The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature (2024), is joining me for a chat about the significance of trans literature today, as well as its roots and legacies, especially in the 20th century. Sabine speaks about the difficult implications of transness as a symbol of futurity in science fiction and contrasts a personal connection with 1970s feminist science fiction to contemporary frictions between some feminisms and transness.

As you listen to this episode, we recommend transing transily through your house and following @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

References:
The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature (2024)
Material Girls podcast
Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer
Douglas Vakoch
The Climate Deniers Playbook
Rollie Williams
Nicole Conlan
Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot duology
Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries
Judith Butler’s Undoing Gender
Eman Abdelhadi and M. E. O'Brien’s Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072
Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time
Ursula LeGuin
Philip K. Dick
Cecilia Gentili’s Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn't My Rapist
Little Puss

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How does Sabine describe the current moment in trans literature? Why do we need a handbook of trans literature now? 2. What might the relationship between trans literature and ecocriticism be? 3. Why is science fiction an interesting but also potentially problematic genre when it comes to depiction of transness and gender nonconformity? 4. What is Sabine gesturing to when speaking about the relationship between feminist science fiction and transness in the late 20th century and feminism and transness today? 5. What can we learn from trans literature?

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How does your embodiment affect your perception and thus your writing? This is one of many questions Amber Jamilla Musser tackles in her most recent monograph, which builds on her brilliant work in Black feminism and queer femininity. Amber tells us how sensation and individual experience need to be part of an ethics of perception and why queerness is method that allows us to think capaciously and in connection with the body.

Come and marinate in the unruliness of being with us! Follow @queerlitpodcast and @a_jamilla on Instagram for more.

References:
https://www.amberjamillamusser.com/
Sensational Flesh: Race, Power, and Masochism (NYU Press, 2014)
Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance (NYU Press, 2018)
Between Shadows and Noise: Sensation, Situatedness, and the Undisciplined (Duke University Press, 2024)
Queer Form (special issue of ASAP, edited by Kadji Amin, Amber Jamilla Musser and Roy Pérez)
Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies (NYU Press, 2021)
Feminist Keywords Podcast
Karen Tongson
Association for Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP)
Jordan Peele’s Us
Ming Smith’s Flamingo Fandango (West Berlin) (painted)
Édouard Glissant
Ronak Kapadia
Stephanie Clare
Sharon Holland’s an other
Tiffany Lethabo King
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Audre Lorde
Titus Kaphar’s Pillow for Fragile Fictions
Audre Lorde’s Zami: A Biomythography
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s Big Girl

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What does Amber mean when she speaks about masochism? 2. What might an ethics of perception be? 3. Amber speaks about how our bodily histories affect how we perceive. What is you bodily history? 4. Amber suggests that queerness is a method in Between Shadows and Noise. What does this method allow Amber to do? 5. How is knowledge embodied? Do you think about this when you read or write academic texts, which often suggest a neutral, disembodied perspective?

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Have you heard of the wholesome queer Gothic? This is the cool new term that might just explain why so many of us were obsessed with monsters, witches, witches and vampires before we came out of the coffin, uhm, closet. Sarah Faber and Kerstin-Anja Münderlein join me for this spooky special to speak about their favourite Gothic books, games, and tropes, and about the amazing collection they co-edited. Tune in for seasonal reading recommendations and reflections on gender transgressions in Gothic narratives.

References:
Rethinking Gothic Transgressions of Gender and Sexuality (Routledge, 2024)
Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764)
Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian (1797) and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca
Naomi Novik’s Uprooted and The Scholomance
K.J. Charles’s Band Sinister
Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines
Bloodborne
Dark Souls
Fallen London
Castlevania
Sunless Sea
Doppelganger
Lara Brändle
Franziska Quabeck
Charles Dickens
Alycia Garbay
Grace King
Kit Schuster
Jennifer’s Body
Dracula
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher
Julia Armfield’s Private Rites
The Hays Code
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Heartstopper
Casey McQuiston
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Interview with The Vampire
Brad Pitt
Night Cascades
Hanako Games
Carolyn Dinshaw
Elizabeth Freeman
Kirsty Logan’s Things We Say in the Dark
Juno Dawson’s Wonderland (2020)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why is the Gothic both a genre and a mode? What do these terms mean? 2. What are typical tropes and features of Gothic writing? 3. Which century might we consider as an origin point of Gothic writing? 4. What is the wholesome queer Gothic? 5. What are male and female traditions of the Gothic? 6. What is your favourite kind of monster and why?

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Femme theory, bisexual butches, racy footnotes – the brand-new edited collection Queering Desire has it all. The brilliant editors, Róisín Ryan-Flood and Amy Tooth Murphy, join me for a chat about what the book means to them and how challenging and rewarding interdisciplinary research on lesbians and sapphics can be. They dive into the multi-faceted contributions and how they matter to queer culture today and also generously share their personal experience in collecting the many gems that make up Queering Desire. Follow @roisinryanflood and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram to learn more!

References:
Holding Hands: Experiences of shame, pride and protest among LGBT relationship partners
Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship
https://www.essex.ac.uk/centres-and-institutes/intimate-and-sexual-citizenship
Notches
Esther Newton
Sally Munt
Anne Lister
Les Feinberg
Billie Eilish
Charli XCX
Eleanor Medhurst
Sarah Joy Ford
Susan Stryker
Rosalind Gill
Kimberley Mather
Mie Astrup Jensen
El. Reid-Buckley
Phoebe Kisubi Mbasalaki
Liz Millward
Marie Lou Duret
Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain #
Ken Plummer
Agnes
Ella Ben Hagai
Dominique Adams-Santos
Skala Eressos
Sappho
Sadie Lee
Libro Levi Bridgeman’s The Butch Monologues
Jack Halberstam’s Female Masculinities
Ladies of Llangollen
José Esteban Muñoz
K. Allison Hammer
Gay’s The Word
Esther Newton’s My Butch Career
Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold
Patricia Highsmith’s Carol (The Price of Salt)
The Talented Mr Ripley
Andrew Scott Alfred
Hitchcock Strangers on a Train
Lillian Faderman’s Surpassing the Love of Men
Grace Ellis’ Flung out of Space

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. The editors speak a lot about interdisciplinarity and their respective backgrounds in the humanities and in sociology. Which challenges and benefits of working across disciplines do they mention? Can you think of others? 2. Another important thread is queerness across different generations. How do you experience queer kinship across generations? What do you think the term ‘queer lineage’ might mean? 3. What might femme theory be? Please look up the term and see what you find. 4. What do the editors say about online and physical queer space? 5. Which essay of Queering Desire are you going to read first and why?

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Get ready, queer language enthusiasts and trans literature francophiles! In another spontaneous recording from Lesvos, Mélie Boltz Nasr aka May tells us all about their genderbending fairy tale collection for adult readers. We also speak about feminist fonts, French grammar and how queering language is not just an activist aim but also a beautiful creative practice. To learn more about May, follow them on Instagram and check out @queerlitpodcast while you’re there.

References:
Skala Eressos
Sappho
Contes D’Un Autre Bois
https://www.editions-ixe.fr/catalogue/contes-dun-autre-bois/
Charles Perrault
Grimm brothers
Walt Disney
Hassan Abdulrazzak’s Laila Pines For The Wolf
https://medium.com/@abdulrazzak/laila-pines-for-the-wolf-3710e81ebbd0
Éditions iXe
Bye Bye Binary
https://typotheque.genderfluid.space/fr
@bye.byebinary
BBB Baskervvol
Glyph
Alpheratz
Ursula Le Guin “Is Gender Necessary? Redux”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ursula-k-le-guin-is-gender-necessary-redux
Aesop
Lettre Aux Copaines
https://lettre-aux-copaines.kessel.media/posts

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What might the political framework of your favourite fairy tale be? 2. Have you ever used an inclusive font? What do you think of this idea? 3. What is an example of feminist grammar in your native language? 4. Do you think nonbinary language is political? What is its place in creative practice? 5. If you were to invent a nonbinary font, what would it be called?

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Guess who I ran into on the beautiful island of Lesvos: Karen McLeod, author of the amazing memoir Lifting Off. Karen sat down with me at Ohana Saloon, a queer-owned beach bar in Skala Eressos, and told me about her performance art, about working as aircrew as a queer woman, experiences with addiction, and about a new Lesvos-related book she is just starting to write…

Warning for the noise-sensitive: you will be able to hear the ocean, the wind, and the many, many lesbians.

Learn more about Karen’s work on Instagram @therealkarenmcleod and see @queerlitpodcast for our newest episodes.

References:
Out and Wild
Barbara Brownskirt
Lifting Off
In Search of a Missing Eyelash
Muswell Press
The Bookseller Crow
Cindy Sherman
Section 28
Polari
Shirley Valentine
The Short Tall Letter
https://karenmcleod.substack.com/
Julia Darling’s Crocodile Soup
Jackie Kay
Stella Duffy

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. We are recording in Skala Eressos, which has a close connection to Lesbian poet Sappho. Why not take a moment to read more about Sappho right now? 2. Karen begins by speaking about her experience of not being able to be out at work. Do you ever have to hide parts of yourself, based on where you are and who you interact with? 3. Karen briefly mentions Section 28. If you are not familiar, please look up what this term means in the context of the United Kingdom and homophobic legislation. 4. Karen and I speak about how amazing intergenerational queer spaces are. Do you share that experience? Why do you think different age groups can learn from one another, especially in an LGBTQIA2S+ context?

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Kit Heyam’s amazing history of gender nonconformity across the globe is a dazzling journey into the intricacies of trans history and if it’s not your favourite book already, it will be after listening to this episode. Learn why Kit particularly enjoyed writing about Edo Japan, what they discovered about intersex history and who their favourite person to write about was. We also have a discussion about how biological sex has always been a difficult thing to define and, drumroll, Kit even tells me what their next book will be about…

Grab your earphones, start listening, and follow @kitheyamwriter and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram to learn more.

References:
Kit Heyam’s Before We Were Trans (2022)
Kit Heyam’s The Reputation of Edward II, 1305-1697 (2020)
Igbo
Edo Japan
Shunga
Wakashū
Sexology
Thomas/Thomasine Hall
Roberta Cowell
Meg-John Barker
Princess Seraphina
Blake Gutt
Iphis and Ianthe
Harlan Weaver’s Bad Dog: Pit Bull Politics and Multispecies Justice (2011)
Mo Moulton
Hijra
Jessica Hinchy
Jules Gill-Peterson
@kitheyamwriter
Sara Taylor’s The Lauras
Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota
The Iliad

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is Kit’s view of trans history? How do they feel about labels? 2. We speak about how gender expression and sexuality may intersect (although of course they are separate for some people). What does Kit see as a challenge here? Is your gender connected to your sexuality? 3. One of Kit’s favourite chapters is about biological sex. How would you define biological sex? How has it been defined historically in the examples Kit provides? 4. What does trans family mean to you? 5. Kit briefly speaks about the agency of children. Why is that an important topic in queer and trans studies and lives?

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Graphic designer Marwan Kaabour has created a stunning book that is so much more than your average glossary. Join me and Marwan to talk about what makes The Queer Arab Glossary so special: from the illustrations that powerfully reclaim slurs to the essays that explore the queer methodology of the book. It was an absolute pleasure chatting to Marwan about the journey that led him to start his amazing platform @takweer_ and learn about how the community he created through Takweer helped him shape the Glossary.

Listen now to learn about Marwan’s favourite word in the book (Qāyiso-l-mā’), my favourite word (boya) and follow @ustaz_marwan and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram to learn more.

References:
@takweer_
Haitham Haddad
Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam
Lot
Qāyiso-l-mā’
boya
Māl al-Ḥūṭa
Bahrain
Sophie Chamas
@ustaz_marwan
Cinema Fouad
Mohamed Soueid
Oscar Al-Halabiye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDtRCpWxB1Q

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why did Marwan begin the queer Arab glossary? 2. Which three notions of queer Arabic language does Marwan speak about when explaining the submission process for the glossary? 3. How do we define when a word is hurtful or playful? Why does Marwan decide he cannot make that distinction in the glossary? 4. Which countries make up the Arab speaking world? We mention some of them in the episode. Please look up the rest. 5. Marwan speaks about water as a central element in the book. Why is that? Can you relate to this?

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Let’s go on a field trip! New York City is an amazing city for book shopping and LGBTQIA2S+ activism. Bluestockings Cooperative offers both. This amazing bookstore and community space almost feels too good to be true: nestled into the Lower East Side, Bluestockings has provided dyke dating, community support and all kinds of activism for well over two decades years now. Tune in today to hear lovely bookseller Raquel tell me more about the shop and its history.

And did you know? All the cool queers follow @bluestockingsnyc, @raqthebookseller and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

References:
Kathryn Welsh (now Grantham, owner of Black Bird Bookstore in California)
Gay’s The Word
Sara Ahmed
Transparency
Black and Pink New York
@Blackandpinknyc
Bluestockings.com
@bluestockingsnyc
@bluestockingscares
Samuel R. Delany’s Time Square Red, Time Square Blue
Rudy Giuliani

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. If you could dream up an LGBTQIA2S+ space, what would it look like? 2. What is your favourite thing about going to community-run spaces? 3. Raquel speaks a lot about trust. Why do you think it is that supposedly inclusive spaces do not always feel inclusive? What might we do to change this? 4. Which of the activist organisations or activities that Raquel mentions are you going to check out?

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Queer television is clearly having a moment and I got to learn more about this from my new favourite LGBTQ TV expert: Hollis Griffin. From the problematic categorisation of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ representation to watching telly at the gay bar, we talk about what queer TV can and can’t do and why it’s so enjoyable even when it’s bad. Hollis shares expert knowledge, personal anecdotes and an amazing Lauren Berlant quote: “Nobody like their pleasure undone by somebody with a theory.”

References:
Gentrification Imaginaries Conference
Freiburg University
Maria Sulimma
Hollis Griffin's Feeling Normal: Sexuality and Media Criticism in the Digital Age (Indiana, 2017)
Hollis Griffin (ed) Television Studies in Queer Times (Routledge, 2023)
Hollis Griffin's Securing the Big Apple: Television and the Gentrification of New York (forthcoming)
Will and Grace
Lauren Berlant’s Desire/Love
Cael Keegan’s “In Praise of the Bad Transgender Object: Sleepaway Camp” (2020)
https://www.flowjournal.org/2020/07/in-praise-of-the-bad-sleepaway/
Allison Page’s Media and the Affective Life of Slavery (2022)
Melrose Place
Aaron Spelling
Interview with the Vampire Isaac
Fellman’s Dead Collection
Susan Stryker
The Fathers Project
Hunter Hargraves

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What does representation mean? In how far it is a useful category? 2. What can ‘bad objects’ teach us? Do you have an example? 3. What are places where one might watch queer TV and how do these places influence viewing behaviour? 4. Why is there pleasure in watching TV? Which shows do you enjoy? 5. Please look up at least one of the scholars that you learned about in this episode and find out more about their work.

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If I hadn’t already been a massive fan of Nicola Dinan, I would have become one after this! I was beyond excited to get to speak to Nicola at Surrey New Writers Festival and was extremely grateful that she was able to take some time after our panel to tell me more about her incredible debut novel Bellies (2023), about capitalism and queerness, about food and affection, and so much more. Find Nicola and the podcast on Instagram: @nicoladinan and @queerlitpodcast.

Thank you to the amazing Sharlene Teo for creating this space and for inviting me to be a part of it!

References:
Nicola Dinan’s Bellies (2023)
Disappoint Me (forthcoming in 2025)
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Homo Sapiens Podcast
James Baldwin’s Another Country
Francis Bacon

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. Bellies is a love story told from the perspective of both lovers. What would you imagine this entails for the plot? What do we learn that we would not learn from a ‘one-sided’ love story?
2. In the episode, we speak quite a bit about ways of living together. How do you think queerness, class and nationality affect expectations of how, where and with whom we may want to live?
3. Nicola comments on questions about Bellies no longer being exclusively about transition. Why do you think this is?
4. Is food connected to affection in your mind? Why or why not?

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Meet your new favourite theory podcast! Theoryish is a brilliant audio journey that may just meet all your academic needs. Paola and Hannah are an amazing team and bring you everything from an introduction to queer studies to a deep dive into a critique of #girlboss. If you’re looking for a fun and relatable entry point to that particular theory you were always wondering about, come, follow me…

For quality academic memes, follow @theoryish_pod on Instagram and check out @queerlitpodcast too!

References:
Third Reich
Queer/Disrupt
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/research/centres/queerhistory/queeringthequarantine/
Nick Cherryman
Linda Nochlin “Why Are There No Great Women Artists”
Igor Ahmedov
Kierkegaard
Susan Sontag
Notes on Camp
bell hooks
Adebayo Quadry-Adekanbi
Sue Lemos
Jennifer V. Evans
Meaghan Allen
Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror
Herbert Tobias
Anna Hájková
Medina-Gonzalez, P. "Appropriateness, Consent, and Intergenerational Kinship: Discussions of Herbert Tobias’sManfred Schubert",New Fascisms Syllabus.
https://newfascismsyllabus.com/contributions/roundtable_queer_art_history/appropriateness-consent-and-intergenerational-kinship-discussions-of-herbert-tobiass-manfred-schubert/
José Esteban Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia
Hannah Ayres; Where Do We Reside?: Queer Space, Existences, and Future Imaginings. (Book Review) TSQ 1 November 2023; 10 (3-4): 550–552.
https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article/10/3-4/550/385682/Where-Do-We-Reside-Queer-Space-Existences-and?guestAccessKey=6c2ea6ad-9141-4784-b86b-e0498ad955b1
Karen Tongson
https://www.hannahayres.co.uk/
@Miss_HVA
Jack Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure
Pinky and the Brain
@paolaMedGonz
@theoryish_pod

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why did Hannah and Paola start Theoryish? Can you relate? 2. Paola explains the complexity of theory as layers. What does Theoryish do to break through the layers and make theory more accessible? 3. How does disciplinary knowledge play into the Theoryish approach? 4. How do Hannah and Paola describe queer knowledge production and/or pedagogical practice? 5. Do podcasts help you access new knowledge?

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Combine the age-old art of conversation with easy access to digital dissemination and you get: podcasting! Hannah McGregor is THE expert on scholarly podcasting, new approaches to peer review and (although we only mention this briefly) feminist lesbian dinosaurs. In this episode, we chat about how Hannah approaches podcasting, what it can and can’t do, and why it is such a useful tool in queer knowledge production. Whether you’re interested in podcasting, queer scholarship or changing the very nature of academic discourse, this episode is for you.

Learn more about Hannah’s work (and fabulous style) on Instagram (@hkpmcgregor) and give @queerlitpodcast a follow while you’re there.

References:
https://www.hannahmcgregor.com/
Witch Please
The Secret Feminist Agenda
Material Girls
Amplify Podcast Network
Hannah McGregor’s A Sentimental Education (2022)
Lori Beckstead, Ian M. Cook, and Hannah McGregor’s Podcast or Perish (2024)
Hannah McGregor’s Clever Girl (2024)
Siobhan McMenemy
Marcelle Kosman
Brenna Clarke Gray’s “The University Cannot Love You”
Jenny Odell’s Saving Time and How To Do Nothing
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha's Care Work

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is Hannah’s definition of knowledge production? 2. How do podcasts produce knowledge? Do they do this queerly? 3. Which academic format does Hannah liken podcast conversations to? Would you agree with this comparison or have you had a different experience? 4. Towards the end of the episode, Hannah and I speak about the body in academia. Why is embodiment relevant in scholarship and podcasting? 5. Have you ever produced knowledge through conversation? What did that feel like?

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Narratives can help us make sense of trauma – but what if these trauma narratives do not fit into preconceived structures of storytelling? Nora Parr joins me to speak about the role of narrative in trauma, in mental health and in understanding national, cultural and individual identity construction. Nora talks about how Palestinian literature forges its own narratives, why Palestinian literary history has so often been made invisible, and what genre conventions have to do with all of this.

Learn more about Nora’s work by following @noraehp on Instagram!

References:
Novel Palestine: Nation through the Works of Ibrahim Nasrallah (2023) by Nora Parr
Susan Lanser
Narrative Conference (ISSN)
https://www.thenarrativesociety.org/2024-conference-1
The Palestine Trauma Centre
https://www.palestinetraumacentre.uk/
Nakba
Road to Beersheva by Ethel Mannin (to see how some Arab critics received her work see this translation in the Journal of Arabic Literature https://doi.org/10.1163/1570064x-12341510)
Bab al-Shams (trans. as Gate of the Sun) by Elias Khoury
Children of the Ghetto series
https://rayaagency.org/book-author/khoury-elias/
Don’t Look Left: Diary of a Genocide by Atef Abu Saif, translated and published by Comma Press in Manchester
Ellipses (the first instance that really got Nora thinking is addressed in chapter 4 of the book Novel Palestine, page 77 has an image of the ellipses in question!) https://luminosoa.org/site/books/10.1525/luminos.168/read/?loc=001.xhtml
This article looks the problem of ‘eloquent silence’ from a different angle.
https://archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de/ep/0003/2018/229/7792/
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
J.M. Coetzee (writing on this is in a forthcoming chapter in Teaching Politically from Fordham Uni press, eds May Hawwas and Bruce Robbins)
https://www.gazapassages.com/
https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/
https://www.instagram.com/motaz_azaiza/
https://www.instagram.com/omarherzshow/
The Tale of a Wall by Nasser Abu Srour
Maya Abu Al-Hayat
Memory of Forgetfulness by Mahmoud Darwish
Maria Sulimma
Trees for the Absentees by Ahlam Bsharat
Rights4Time
https://rights4time.com/nora-parr/

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Throughout the podcast, Nora mentions how genre and genre expectations (for YA literature, science fiction, and serial narratives, for example) impact how we perceive narratives. Do you have an example for this? 2. What does Nora say about the temporal structure of trauma and storytelling? 3. What might the study of narrative have to do with mental health? 4. Which narratives can social media convey about everyday life in Gaza? Which examples does Nora give? 5. How willing are you to engage with narratives that are uncomfortable?

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Did you know that lesbians sporting sportswear is a queer tradition dating back centuries? Or that 1910s Japanese lesbians liked to don a yukata to send subtle signals about their gender identity and sexual orientation? My favourite foremost expert in lesbian fashion history, Eleanor Medhurst, is gracing the podcast with a return performance, sharing her vast knowledge about all of these topics and more.

Listen now to learn all about how queer and gendernonconforming people dressed through the ages and follow @dressingdykes and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram to stay up-to-date and to book your tickets for Ellie’s book tour!

References:
@dressingdykes
Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion
https://dressingdykes.com/
Lesbian Lives Conference
Anne Lister
Sarah Wingrove
Queen Christina of Sweden
Radclyffe Hall
The Well of Loneliness
Crufts
Female Husbands
Jen Manion
Sappho
Meiji Era
Seitō
Sexology
Hiratsuka Raichō
Otake Kōkichi
Yukata
Kimono
Queering Desire: Lesbians, Gender and Subjectivity
Amy Tooth Murphy
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home
“Ring of Keys”
Roots Lesbian Fashion
Gillian Anderson
Cameron Esposito
Queery (podcast)
Lesbian Chique
k.d. lang
Vanity Fair
The L Word
The Queery (Brighton)
The Feminist Bookshop
Freya Marske’s The Last Binding Trilogy
Kristen Stewart
Happiest Season

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Can you name at least three historical fashion icons we speak about in the episode? 2. Eleanor explains why literature is important in fashion history. In which ways does Ellie use literary texts to learn about lesbian dress? 3. We use multiple words to describe the people whose fashion Eleanor writes about in Unsuitable. Why is that and what are some of the difficulties with labelling a historical figure? 4. Many of the people Ellie speaks about combine clothes with different gender connotations. Can you give an example of this? Do you think this is still relevant today? 5. Do you think lesbians are fashionable?

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Can you believe this is our 100th episode? Listen now to hear about some listeners’ favourite episodes, about future plans for the podcast and about how the cats are feeling these days.

References:
https://ko-fi.com/queerlit
Karen Tongson
Normporn
Susan Stryker
Cate Sandilands
Kew Gardens
Elizabeth Freeman
Diane Watt
Briona Simone Jones
Yesterqueer’s Holigays
Out and Wild
https://www.outandwild.co.uk/
Alison Bechdel
Alex Iantaffi
Kai Cheng Thom
Sara Ahmed
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Mo Moulton
Alberto Poza

Questions I still have:
1. What can I do to make my listeners even happier? 2. Who are all these awesome people that spend their time with me and my guests? 3. Will I really make another 100 episodes? 4. When will Rufus take over as podcast host?

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What could be more soothing than escaping your beautiful but complex queer life by watching a bunch of straight people remodel their suburban home in a new shade of beige? Karen Tongson joins me to explain why mainstream television can be so comforting and why admitting to having watched Gilmore Girls for the fourth time can feel a bit like sharing your browser history… In this curious entanglement of norms, shame, and self-soothing, Karen also shares insights into the shifting views of what is normal and what this means for queer life – televisually as well as geographically and sociopolitically.

Listen now to hear Karen speak about “surrendering to the spontaneous overflow of basic feelings” and don’t forget to follow Karen on Instagram @tongsonator to keep up to date with her work.

References:
Karen Tongson’s Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV That Soothes Us (2023)
Karen Tongson’s Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries (2011)
Karen Tongson’s Why Karen Carpenter Matters (2021)
Karen Tongson’s Empty Orchestra (forthcoming)
The Ultimatum
Thirtysomething
Parenthood
True Blood
Gilmore Girls
José Esteban Muñoz
Catherine Zimmer
Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette
The Phantom of the Opera
Michael Crawford
Sailor Moon
Tuxedo Mask
Gestalt
The Traitors
Alan Cumming
@tongsonator
Karentongson.org

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Can you define ‘normporn’ and give an example of what might be a typical normporn show? 2. What is the ‘porn’ in ‘normporn’? How does shame play into watching mainstream TV as queer escapism? 3. What role does grief play in relation to normporn? 4. Karen talks about discussions of normalcy as a throughline for all three of her currently published books. Which type of ‘normal’ does each monograph discuss? 5. Which show do you find particularly soothing and why?

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Have you read the iconic Taiwanese novel The Membranes by Chi Ta-Wei? If so, in which language? Alberto has crafted the fabulous Spanish translation of this beautifully genderweird text and joins me to speak about the opportunities and challenges the highly gendered structures of Spanish offer for this. If you have ever wondered which pronoun or gendered inflection to use for a cyborg and what language might best describe a trans machine, this is the episode for you.

Learn more about Alberto’s work on Instagram @aiweip or on Twitter (@Albertop_p) and consider giving @queerlitpodcast a follow as well.

References:
Queer and Trans Philologies
Diane Watt
Chi Ta-Wei’s The Membranes
Ari Larissa Heinrichs
Queer Ecologies and Environmental Writing (module)
https://lenamattheis.files.wordpress.com/2023/12/module-handbook-queer-ecologies.pdf
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun
Jack Halberstam
Paul Preciado
Alana Portero’s Bad Habit (La Mala Costumbre, 2023)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Have you ever read a queer text in different languages? Do you experience gender differently depending on language? 2. Why do we gender some machines and not others? 3. Alberto comments on how Anglophone readers tend to focus on the trans elements of The Membranes. Why do you think they stand out to Anglophone readers? 4. Alberto comments of generic masculine, generic feminine and genderneutral forms in Spanish. How do you think translations into other languages have dealt with this dilemma and how would you translate this? 5. If you could speak any language fluently, which one would you choose and why?

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If you could pick a gender, any gender, which one would that be, and why would it 1000% be knight? In this special minisode, I get to answer that question with Mabel Mundy, who shares fascinating insights into the genderfuckery of chivalric romance and crossdressing knights. Tune in now, to learn more about why gender ambiguity clearly is, and has always been, super hot, and how this plays out in Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney’s writing.

If you too are picturing Brienne of Tarth at the bathhouse when hearing about Britomart, follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and let me know in the comments. To learn more about Mabel’s work, follow her on Twitter at @mabelcjmundy.

A big, big thank you to the brilliant team of Queer and Trans Philologies at Cambridge University for creating this space!

References:

Petition: https://www.change.org/p/support-our-surrey-campaign?

This is not an isolated issue! See this list of current large-scale UK HE redundancies: https://qmucu.org/qmul-transformation/uk-he-shrinking/

https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/39800/#call-for-papers
Queer and Trans Philologies
University of Cambridge
CRASSH @crasshlive (Instagram)
Crossdressing
Genderfuckery
Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene
Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia
Margaret Cavendish’s The Covenant of Pleasure
Chivalric Romance
Britomart
Malecasta
Bradamante
Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso
Diane Watt
The Redcrosse Knight
Una

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What forms of genderfuckery does Mabel talk about? If you are not familiar with the term, please look it up and/or check out the Queer Lit episode with Nick Cherryman. 2. Why is Mabel particularly interested in doing research on chivalric romances? 3. Mabel comments on how crossdressing knights can reveal something about the social category of gender that is possibly more important than their individual gender. Would you agree with that? Why or why not? 4. Do you have a favourite knight?

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How does a queer, trans or intersex body take shape in a narrative? Dr Chiara Pellegrini is here to help us better understand how narrative form, point of view, and embodiment interact in contemporary storytelling – whether that be in novels, short stories or reality TV. We speak about problematic narrative tropes of trans narration, such as the ‘gender reveal’, but also about how some narrative voices protect their characters from voyeuristic intrusions. I’m also absolutely fascinated by Chiara’s take on Barbie.

Don’t delay, listen today! To learn more about Chiara’s work, follow her on Twitter @chiarapg4 and, while you’re at it, stay in touch with the podcast on Instagram @queerlitpodcast.

References:

Pellegrini, Chiara. Trans Narrators: First-Person Form and the Gendered Body in Contemporary Literature. Edinburgh University Press, 2025.

Gillis, Stacy and Chiara Pellegrini (eds.) The Cultural Politics of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Special Issue of Feminist Theory 25.4 (2024).

Mejeur, Cody and Chiara Pellegrini (eds.) Trans/forming Narrative Studies. Special Issue of Narrative 32.2 (2024).

Pellegrini, Chiara. ‘Anticipating the Plot: Overdetermining Heteronormative Destiny on the Twenty-First- Century Screen’, Textual Practice (2022): 1-23.

Pellegrini, Chiara. ‘“Declining to Describe”: Intersex Narrators and Textual Visibility’. Interdisciplinary and Global Perspectives on Intersex. Ed. Megan Walker (Palgrave, 2022): 49-64.

ISSN International Society for the Study of Narrative

https://www.thenarrativesociety.org/2024-conference-1

Narrative for Social Justice

https://www.thenarrativesociety.org/n4sj

Jay Prosser’s Second Skins

Travis Alabanza’s None of the Above

Calvin Gimpelevic’s Invasions: Stories

Susan Lanser “Queering Narrative Voice” Textual Practice 32.6 (2018)

Sara Taylor’s The Lauras

Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox

Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex

Marquis Bey’s Black Trans Feminism

Hida Viloria - Born Both: An Intersex Life (Hachette 2017)

Hannah Gadsby’s The Gender Agenda

Dahlia Belle (the comic Lena mentions)

Cody Mejeur

Casey Plett and Cat Fitzpatrick’s Meanwhile, Elsewhere

The Ultimatum

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How might narrative point of view affect trans and intersex narratives? Why do you think the first person has been a particularly popular point of view in trans texts? 2. What does ‘embodiment’ mean when it comes to narration? 3. Chiara suggests that narratology (the study of how we tell stories) can learn a lot from trans narrative forms. What, for example, can we learn from a trans perspective? 4. We speak about problematic narratives that conceal trans or queer bodies, only to reveal them to readers or viewers later on. Can you think of an example for this type of narrative? Why would this be harmful? 5. How do you feel about some of the recent queer reality TV shows?

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https://surrey-ucu.org.uk/category/news/

https://www.instagram.com/supportsurreysll/?hl=en

https://www.change.org/p/support-our-surrey-campaign?

This is not an isolated issue! See this list of current large-scale UK HE redundancies:

https://qmucu.org/qmul-transformation/uk-he-shrinking/

IG: @supportsurreysll

Twitter/x: @SaveSurreySLL

https://universityenglish.ac.uk/englishcreates/#:~:text=EnglishCreates%20is%20a%20campaign%20to,literature%2C%20language%20and%20creative%20writing

@queerlitpodcast
queerlitpodcast@gmail.com

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Despite the title, this episode contains a generous amount of laughter, because it is just that enjoyable to talk to Hil Malatino, brilliant author of Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad (2022). Hil has published groundbreaking work on trans and intersex stories and histories and, in this most recent monograph, draws our attention to the complexities of trans affect. In order to explore emotions such as numbness, fatigue, envy and rage, Hil consults literary texts as well as performance art, so of course I make Hil talk about my new favourite performance art obsession Cassils, alongside Casey Plett and Kai Cheng Thom. Tune in now to learn about all of these fascinating people, about human dolphin communication, about the manifold uses of ketamine, and about Xena and Subaru.

Find Hil on Instagram @gay_vague and everywhere else @HilMalatino and follow the podcast @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

References:
Hil Malatino’s Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad (UP Minnesota, 2022)
Hil Malatino’s Trans Care (2020)
Hil Malatino’s Queer Embodiment (2019)
Katy Steinmetz “The Transgender Tipping Point” (2014)
https://time.com/135480/transgender-tipping-point/
Casey Plett
CeCe McDonald
Cassils’ ‘Monument Push’ and ‘Becoming an Image’
Sandra Harding’s strong objectivity
Autotheory
Kai Cheng Thom’s Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars
Paul Preciado
Susan Stryker
Marina Abramovic Institute
Tiresias
Sam Tenorio
Reed Erickson
The Human Potential Movement
Isaac Fellman’s Dead Collections
Sarah Schulman’s Girls, Visions and Everything
Dorothy Allison’s Two or Three Things I Know for Sure Bastard Out Of Carolina
Mo Moulton
Xena: Warrior Princess
WGS South
https://wgssouth.org/

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Which types of affects does Hil write about in Side Affects? What role do they play in trans storytelling? 2. Can you list the bad feelings that Hil discusses in the book? Hint: You can also look at the table of contents online. 3. How does Hil describe the method of Side Affects, in terms of selecting and discussing texts? 4. Why does Hil find ‘triumphant’ narratives about trans lives problematic? Can you think of an example of such a narrative? 5. Hil speaks about positionality in academic writing. How do you feel about this? Do you write about yourself in your work?

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How often do you get to chat with the author of your major literary obsession and learn something about queer storytelling at the same time? I cannot believe I actually got to sit down with @lamyaisangry to talk about their brilliant novel Hijab Butch Blues, their essay writing and the queer future, which, according to Lamya, will be weird AF. Listen now, to hear about queer readings of the Quran, gender expression at the gym, new coming out narratives, and Lamya’s queer writing ancestors. Not to be missed!

References:

Lamya H. “A Fragile Dance: Queer Brown Futures (Or Lack Thereof).” Autostraddle, 23 April 2015.
https://www.autostraddle.com/a-fragile-dance-queer-brown-futures-or-lack-thereof-284789/
Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues
Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider
Zami
"A Litany for Survival"
Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For
Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina
Cavedweller
Stone Wall Award
American Library Association
https://www.lamyah.com/

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Lamya writes in a very interesting form of memoir. What makes the structure of their novel unique? 2. What does Lamya think about coming out narratives and how they are changing in contemporary literature? 3. Who does Lamya name as her queer ancestors? Please look up at least one of them to find out a little more about their life and work. 4. What does Lamya say about the queer future? What do you think the queer future, or the future of queer narratives, will look like?

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This episode is all about both/and: both trans and queer history, both kinship and relationships, both the past and the present. Mo Moulton, our illustrious guest this fortnight, is an expert in all of them. Mo is a historian of community, who is particularly interested in nonbinary methods to approach gender nonconforming figures of the past. In this episode, Mo talks about a queer and trans desire for kinship with the past, about chosen families, and (my favorite bit) about dogs and the trans experience. If I were you, I would listen right now and follow @queerlitpodcast and @movin_on_out on IG.

References:

Moulton, Mo. Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women . Hachette UK, 2019.

Moulton, Mo. ““Both Your Sexes”: A Non-Binary Approach to Gender History, Trans Studies and the Making of the Self in Modern Britain.” History Workshop Journal 95 (Spring 2023)

Moulton, Mo. “Dogs in the Picture: Restoring the Queer History of the Irish Family.” History of the Family (forthcoming 2024)

Getting Curious

Harlan Weaver, Bad Dog: Pit Bull Politics and Multispecies Justice (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021)

“Queer Pets” with Sarah Parker and Hannah Roche

https://www.spreaker. com/episode/queer-pets-with-sarah-parker-and-hannah-roche--47535404

Dorothy Stokes

Jules Gill-Peterson

C. Riley Snorton

Hil Malatino

Dorothy L. Sayers

Muriel St Clare Byrne

Edward Carpenter's The Intermediate Sex

Urning

Deadloch

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What constitutes a nonbinary approach to history?
2. Which three scholars does Mo refer to when they talk about beginning their research on the history of gender?
3. Mo explains that historians often apply the category of gender while speaking about the past while, at the same time, being very careful about not anachronistically using terms such as lesbian or trans. What does Mo think about this? Do you agree?
4. We use two terms that you may or may not be familiar with: 'rainbow washing' and the 'pink pound.' Please look them up and think about whether you have ever encountered an example of one of them.
5. What does Mo say about the perception of radical or transgressive identities? Do you agree? What are your thoughts on this?

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Nonbinary Jesus. Did that get your attention? If so, this episode is for you. Historian extraordinaire Leah DeVun joins me to talk about the pre-modern history of nonbinary gender, about intersex brides, transitioning saints and what terms such as androgyne and hermaphrodite might tell us about conceptions of sex, gender and sexuality. Leah explains how thinking about nonbinary gender was and is a way of interrogating what it means to be human.

Join us for this journey into nonbinary history and religion and, if you just can’t get enough, follow @ldevun (IG), @DevunLeah (Twitter) and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

References:

The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to Renaissance (Columbia UP, 2021)
TSQ special issue: Trans*historicities, co-edited by Leah DeVun and Zeb Tortorici (2018)
Resemblance (2022-)
https://www.leahdevun.com/resemblance
Lamya H.’s Hijab Butch Blues
Gladstone’s Library
Trans/Formations (SCM Press, 2009)
Androgyne
Hermaphrodite
Judith Butler’s Who’s Afraid of Gender
Eleanor Rykener
Rolandina Ronchaia
Berengaria Castelló of Castelló d'Empúries
Joseph of Schönau
Genesis P-Orridge
Throbbing Gristle
Psychic TV

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How does Leah define the term nonbinary? How is this similar to or different from other definitions you have come across? 2. Leah explains that thinking about nonbinary gender has an impact on categories other than gender. What does this imply and what would be examples? 3. Why does Leah say that focusing on a nonconforming individual should not be the only way to write nonbinary history? 4. Leah explains that when we learn about nonbinary people of the past, we usually meet them on the worst day of their life. What does this mean and how should this influence the way in which we read source texts? 5. Please look up one of the people Leah mentions in the episode and learn a little more about them.

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How can we imagine a trans future? Kit Schuster joins me to talk about how transgression in fiction can help us think new futures. We speak about trans, nonbinary and gendernonconforming characters, norms and settings in science fiction, but Kit also stresses that their definition of trans is not limited to gender. Instead, Kit invites us to have our queer minds blown in all kinds of ways by future fictions but also by Gothic and horror texts. Apologies for the audio quality! Sometimes, a podcaster needs to improvise…

If you enjoyed this episode, why not follow @officialkitschuster and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram, where you can also learn more about all the great stuff Freiburg University is doing: @engsemfreiburg and @fs.anglistik.freiburg.

References:
“From Gothic Heroines to Monstrous Prom Queens: Gender Horror in Dracula and Jennifer’s Body,” Rethinking Gothic Transgressions of Gender and Sexuality New Directions in Gothic Studies. ed. Sarah Faber and Kerstin-Anja Münderlein. Routledge, 2024.
Queer Second Cities
https://queersecondcities.wordpress.com/
Queer Perseverance
https://www.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de/events/topicweeks
Jennifer’s Body
Dracula
Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts
Afrofuturism
Generationship
Posthumanism
Frankenstein
Susan Stryker
Torey Peters’ Detransition, Baby!
Cael Keegan
Julian K. Jarboe’s Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel and “I AM A BEAUTIFUL BUG!”
The Murderbot Diaries
Amal El-Mohtar’s How To Lose The Time War
“One-Sided Relationships with Elaine Auyoung” How to Read Podcast
Homo Sapiens
Chappel Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and “Red Wine Supernova”

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is Kit’s definition of ‘trans’? Can you think of a different one or do you have your own? 2. What does Kit think we can learn from trans future fictions? Do you agree? 3. When talking about the future, Kit says that “the past and the future are the same country”. What do you think they mean here? 4. What does Kit say about the collaborative nature of knowledge production in academia? Who inspires you to come up with new ideas? 5. Have you read a text that you think could qualify as trans future fiction?

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The queerest thing you did in 2023: Part Two
Are you ready for 2024? I absolutely am not but to prepare for another queer year, I listen to more of your voice notes and I give you what you probably have not been waiting for: the queerest thing I did this year.

References:
ListenQueer
https://listenqueer.wordpress.com/
Kit Schuster
Jack Jen Gieseking
American Studies Meeting
Lindsey Freeman
Trans Community Run
Mr Samo
London LGBTQ+ Community Centre
Clea DuVall
Tugce Kayaal
Heather Love
Justin Torres’ Blackouts
Whitechapel Gallery
Nicole Eisenman
Susan Stryker

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is the queerest thing you did this year? 2. Do you have a queer tradition for this time of year? 3. Can you relate to any of the experiences my guests talk about in this episode? 4. Are you doing okay? If not, let me know and I will help you find a supportive queer community space.

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We're revisiting a holigay chat from two years ago, talking to a wonderful friend about how hard the festive season can be for queer and trans people.

CW: grief, death, trauma, religion, violence, antiqueerness, antitransness, family trauma

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It’s here! It’s here! The Queer Lit end-of-year special has arrived and it comes in two parts. One you’ll get now and the other we’ll save for Christmas Eve. Tune in to hear me gush about all the lovely messages I received and listen to this year’s Queer Lit guests talk about their supergay highlights of 2023.

References:
Maria Sulimma
Queer Perseverance https://www.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de/events/topicweeks
Queer Second Cities https://queersecondcities.wordpress.com/
Jan Wilm
The Argonauts
Joan Didion
White Elephant
Happiest Season
Out and Wild
Out on the Page
Elizabeth Chakrabarty’s Lessons in Love and Other Crimes
WeirdoMess Market
New House Art Space
The Common Press
The Queery
London LGBTQ Centre
Katherine Hubbard
Diane Watt
SGS MSc https://www.surrey.ac.uk/postgraduate/sex-gender-and-sexualities-msc
I, Joan
The Globe
Kai Minosh Pyle
Trans*temporal kinship
Queer Christmas quiz to download here: https://lenamattheis.wordpress.com/teaching/
Grace Ellis’ Flung Out of Space
Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt
Carol

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is the queerest thing you did this year? 2. Do you have a queer tradition for this time of year? 3. Can you relate to any of the experiences my guests talk about in this episode? 4. Are you doing okay? If not, let me know and I will help you find a supportive queer community space.

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This extraordinary queer space special makes all my dreams come true: I get to hang out with Erica Gillingham in the basement of Gay’s The Word! Sitting between towering stacks of books and boxes of GTW archival material that goes back all the way to the birth of this magnificent LGBTQ+ bookshop in January 1979, Erica shares some highlights of the turbulent and inspiring history of GTW. She also talks about what is happening in queer publishing right now and shares some of her favourite queer YA and romance authors. Hearing Erica speak about the way in which GTW and its magnificent team of booksellers hold space for our community is truly magical and if I could live in that basement forever, I absolutely would.

All I want for Queermas is for you to follow @gaysthewordbookshop, @ericareadsqueer and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram!

References:
Rosa Guy’s Ruby (1976)
Pride (2015)
Ernest Hall
Oscar Wilde Bookshop (New York City)
Gay Socialists
Icebreakers
Lesbian Discussion Group (LDG)
Gay and Disabled Group
Black Gay Group
Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM)
Mark Ashton
Housman’s
Black Lesbian Discussion Group
Ace Reading Group
Jim MacSweeney
Uli Lenart
Common Press
London LGBTQ Centre
Section 28
Laura Kay
Justin Meyers
Alexis Hall
Lily Lindon
Emily Danforth’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Malinda Lo
Isabel Waidner’s Corey Fah Does Social Mobility and We Are Made of Diamond Stuff

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. When was Gay’s The Word established and what are some of the groups that are associated with the shop? 2. What does Erica say about the publishing industry and queer books? What are your thoughts on this? 3. Erica talks about her interest in YA texts and romance novels. Why would queer books in these genres potentially be treated differently by publishers? 4. Do you remember the first time you went to a designated LGBTQIA+ space? What was that like?

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What can you do when the language for who you are doesn’t exist yet? Kai Minosh Pyle’s answer: write gorgeous poetry about it! In this episode, Kai reads one of their multilingual pieces, but they also talk about the benefits of using words that ‘kind of’ fit, and about finding trans*temporal kinship with Two-Spirit ancestors in creative writing and scholarly research. Kai introduces us to some less well-known figures from Indigiqueer history, they talk about the challenges of teaching Two-Spirit writing and they even (possibly) coin a new term right here in this episode!

If you are excited at the prospect of finding out what Indigitrans might mean, don’t delay – listen today!

References:

Pyle, Kai, and Danne Jobin. "Transgender, Two-Spirit and Nonbinary Indigenous Literatures: An Introduction." Transmotion 7.1 (2021): 1-9.

Anishinaabe

Métis

Louise (Wzawshek)

Potawatomi

Ozaawindib

Ralph Kerwineo

“The Midwest is a Two-Spirit Place”

Sweeter Voices Still

Trans*temporal kinship

Lisa Tatonetti

Jas Morgan

Wahkohtowin

Aiyyana Maracle’s A Journey in Gender

Ojibwe

Michif

Keguro Macharia

T4T

Jenzen, Olu. "Revolting Doubles: Radical Narcissism and the Trope of Lesbian Doppelgangers." Journal of Lesbian Studies 17.3-4 (2013): 344-364.

Indigitrans

Joshua Whitehead

Arielle Twist

Muxe

Lukas Avendaño

Jenny Davis

Alex Wilson

Gary Bowen

Leslie Feinberg

Whess Harman’s Salmon Journey

https://www.whessharman.com/comics

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. In this episode, we speak about Two-Spirit identities without defining the term. Can you briefly explain what Two-Spirit means? If not, please look up the term or listen to the Queer Lit episode on the subject with Lisa Tatonetti. 2. Please name at least two of the historical Two-Spirit figures Kai introduces here. Were you familiar with any Two-Spirit figure or author before listening to this episode? 3. Kai speaks about coining the beautiful term ‘trans*temporal’. Can you explain what this means? Have you ever experienced something similar? 4. With their poem “T4T” and in their research, Kai negotiates how gender moves through language. What does Kai see as benefits of understanding gender through multiple languages? What are challenges? 5. Did you ever have to translate (literally or figuratively) your gender and/or sexuality? What was that like?

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You may think that second wave feminism and trans activism are mutually exclusive but guess what: there is actually a whole lot of diversity in second wave feminist theory, writing, activism and print culture. Emily Cousens has done lots of archival research to highlight trans thinking and the way it has informed and shaped second wave feminism. Listen to our conversation to learn more about the grassroots movements, trans newsletters and gendernonconforming thinkers that make the second wave trans.

References:

Emily Cousens’ Trans Feminist Epistemologies in the US Second Wave (Palgrave, 2023)

University of Victoria Archives

GLBT Historical Society San Francisco

Digital Transgender Archive https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/

Louise Lawrence Archive San Francisco

Ms Bob Davis

Virginia Prince

Transvestia

Foundation for Full Personality Expression (FPE)

STAR Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries

Black Lives Matter

Sisters Uncut

Combahee River Collective

Foucault

Barbara Smith

Judith Butler

Maxine Wolf

Lesbian Avengers

Dyke March

DressingDykes (Eleanor Medhurst) https://dressingdykes.com/2022/03/25/clothing-culture-at-the-lesbian-conference/

Tri Sigma Heterosexual Crossdresser’s Society

Robert Stoller

John Money

Kate Millet

Gayle Rubin

Margo Schulter

Meg-John Barker

Leslie Feinberg

Beth Elliott

Sandy Stone

Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is second wave feminism and how is it frequently misrepresented? 2. Why are trans studies and second wave feminism often viewed as incompatible? What are Emily’s thoughts on this? 3. What are some of the sources Emily works with? How is print culture defined here? 4. Who is John Money? Why is he significant? 5. How does Emily describe the role of nonbinary and intersex people in their research? 6. How are trans men and trans women viewed differently in second wave feminism?

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If you would like to be a part of the Queer Lit winter tradition, let me know about the queerest thing you did this year and/or any queer winter/holiday traditions and reading recommendations by the end of November. Can't wait to hear from you at queerlitpodcast@gmail.com!

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We’re so done with scary trans villains and monsters – or are we? Cáel Keegan explains why we might be able to learn lessons about trans liberation from Buffalo Bill and why The Silence of the Lambs, upon its release, was actually protested for homophobia. Cáel speaks about transfixing and spellbinding media, from The Matrix to Buffy to video games. Dark Willow makes an appearance. Not to be missed.

References:

Keegan, Cáel M. Lana and Lilly Wachowski. University of Illinois Press, 2018.

Keegan, Cáel M. "Emptying the future: Queer melodramatics and negative utopia in Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture 1.1 (2016): 9-22.

Keegan, Cáel M. "Getting disciplined: What’s trans* about queer studies now?." Journal of homosexuality 67.3 (2020): 384-397.

Keegan, Cáel M., Laura Horak, and Eliza Steinbock. "Cinematic/trans/bodies now (and then, and to come)." Somatechnics* 8.1 (2018): 1-13.

Orange is the New Black

The Matrix

The Silence of the Lambs

Hannibal Lecter

Jodie Foster

Homonormativity

Mads Mikkelsen

Anthony Hopkins

Will Graham

Buffalo Bill

Dark Willow

Soldier’s Girl

Hil Malatino

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism

Judith Butler’s Panicked Mimesis

McKenzie Wark’s Gamer Theory

Work in Progress

Abby McEnany

Theo Germaine

They/Them

Edie Fake’s Gaylord Phoenix

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why is Cáel so interested in mass media? What can we learn from widely received stories – even, or especially when, they’re problematic? 2. Cáel explains how we can take care of difficult texts or even diffuse them like bombs. What does this mean? Did either concept resonate with you? 3. What is cisgender realism and which theorist is Cáel building on with this concept? 4. What is your favourite scary queer text and why is it Carmilla?

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Get the garlic, sprinkle the holy water, but please, leave the antiqueer racism out of my Gothic romance! Dr Maisha Wester (Sheffield/Indiana University) explains why Horror films are so interesting to study, what Brexit has to do with Zombies, why King Kong film posters reveal blatant racism, and why ghosts are not always gay but most definitely queer. Lusty lesbian vampires, Cat People (are those the same?), spiders, sharks, and Supernatural fan fiction: this episode has everything the tell-tale heart could want.
Texts, Films and Stories mentioned:
Dracula
King Kong
Le Fanu’s Carmilla
Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
Family Guy
The Perfection
Roderick Ferguson’s The Nightmares of the Heteronormative
The Hottentot Venus
Raw
Cat People
I walked with a Zombie
Ganja & Hess
Arachnophobia
Jaws
Tendai Huchu’s The Library of the Dead
The Amityville Horror
Teju Cole’s Open City
Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild”
Supernatural
The Haunting of Bly Manor

Not scared enough? Follow Maisha (@maishawester) and me (@queerlitpodcast) on Instagram.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. In what ways are horror narratives and motifs political?
2. Why are queerness and race frequently negotiated in Gothic and horror stories?
3. Why are vampires often coded as queer? Which example for this does Maisha give? Do you have a favourite vampire?
4. What is the abject? What is Other(ing) in literary studies?
5. Open question: What do you think about the role of fear in the representation of queerness and race?

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It’s time to be real. In this episode with queer studies luminary Heather Love, it’s all about what you find, what you feel, what you knooooow(-ah) to be real. We talk about feeling and looking backward while shifting paradigms, about the semiprivate space of the queer classrooms, about the entanglements of queer, trans and disability studies and so much more. Tune in now and follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram for more realness and reading recs.

References to Heather’s work:

Underdogs: Social Deviance and Queer Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

2023 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Memorial Lecture in Gender + Sexuality Studies by Heather Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU6bT2ZtNlA

“Assessing Critique, Scholarly ‘Habits,’ Queer Method and ‘Turns’: An Interview with Heather Love.” In Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, ed. Salla Peltonen and Marianne Liljeström 1.1 (Autumn 2017).

“Gyn/Apology: Sarah Orne Jewett’s Spinster Aesthetics.” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance. ESQ 55.3-4 (Winter 2009): 305-334.

“Safe.” American Literary History 25.1 (Spring 2013): 1-12. Special issue on second books, ed. Gordon Hunter.

Other references:

Davy Knittle
Paris is Burning
Cheryl Lynn’s “To Be Real”
Susan Stryker’s “My Words to Victor Frankenstein” (GLQ, 1994)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Jacques Derrida
Jean-Paul Sartre
Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble
Alison Kafer’s Feminist Queer Crip
Tobin Siebers Rachel Carroll
Susan Stryker’s “More words about ‘My words to Victor Frankenstein’.” (GLQ, 2019)
Audre Lorde’s “The Uses of Anger”
William Wordsworth: “Overflow of powerful feelings [...] recollected in tranquillity”
Ellen Rooney. “A Semiprivate Room.” (Differences, 2002)
Paolo Freire
Herb Kohl
bell hooks
Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt
Carol
Grace Ellis’ Flung Out Of Space

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How does Heather define realness? How does it relate to realism and authenticity? What does being real mean to you? 2. What does Heather say about the impulse to prioritise novelty in queer studies and in capitalist systems? 3. Which Susan Stryker essay does Heather speak about? Why does she find it so important? 4. How do affect studies come into Heather’s work? What does she say about Audre Lorde and writing from a place of anger? 5. Do you think that the classroom is a ‘semiprivate’ space? Take a look at the Rooney essay to investigate. 6. Please pick one of the texts Heather mentions (either her own or other scholars’ work) and read it. The reading recommendations in this episode are heartfelt and brilliant!

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Have you asked yourself lately: What could I do to make my October really super extra queer? Sarah Boira and Vedrana Velickovic have THE festival for you. Listen to this episode to learn all about The Coast is Queer, the UK’s first LGBTQIA+ literary festival that celebrates all texts queer. Some of the events to get excited about: a panel on queer Ukraine, an event about invisible identities, a zine making workshop with lots of participation and plenty of partying with performance poets and open mic nights! Find out more on Instagram (@coastisqueerfest) or on the festival website. Everything is happening (and it really sounds like it’s happening) from 12-15 October at the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts in Brighton. References: https://coastisqueer.com/ New Writing South https://www.newwritingsouth.com/ Marlborough Productions https://marlboroughproductions.org.uk/ Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/centre-for-study-of-sexual-dissidence/ Okechukwu Nzelu’s Here Again Now Johanna Hedva’s “Sick Woman Theory” and “Why It’s Taking So Long” https://topicalcream.org/features/sick-woman-theory/ https://topicalcream.org/features/why-its-taking-so-long/ Questions you should be able to respond to after listening: 1. If you could curate a panel for a queer lit festival, who would you invite and what would the topic be? 2. What does ‘literature’ mean for Sarah and Vedrana? What is your definition of literature? 3. Sarah and Vedrana talk about queering the form of the festival. What does that entail? 4. Which author that you heard about in this episode are you looking up?

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This episode takes us deep, deep into the queer ocean. Alexis Pauline Gumbs submerges us in Black feminist thought, takes us on a deep dive into queer creativity, and, most importantly, allows us to rethink our breathing through gills, lungs, mouths, and bills. Listen now to learn about how Audre Lorde, June Jordan and M. Jacqui Alexander have influenced Alexis Pauline’s work and why marine mammals play such a central part in her writing.

Follow @alexispauline and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and a mystical manatee will visit you in a dream.

References to Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ work:

Undrowned
M Archive
Dub
Spill
Revolutionary Mothering
Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde (2024)

Other references:

Auburn Avenue Research Library
Black Panther Party
Elaine Brown’s A Taste of Power
Audre Lorde
June Jordan
Helen Oyeyemi’s The Opposite House
Ada Gay Griffin
Michelle Parkerson
A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde
Briona Simone Jones
Dub
Sylvia Wynter
Combahee River Collective
Barbara Smith
Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic
M. Jacqui Alexander’s Pedagogies of Crossing
I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities
Audre Lorde’s The Black Unicorn

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What fascinates Alexis Pauline Gumbs about archival research and what does she find in archives that you cannot find in books? 2. Why is Audre Lorde an important figure in queer writing and Black feminism? 3. Why is breathing central to Alexis’ thinking? 4. How does Alexis describe the meaning and potential of ‘queerness’? 5. Which mammals do you feel most connected to and how might this connection shift the way you think about your non-human environment?

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Did you know that yew trees can (and do) change sex? And that many trees are nonbinary? Genderqueer greenery is only one of the fascinating (tree) topics this conversation branches off into. If you want to em-bark on a journey into queer ecologies, this is the sapisode for you. Cate talks about leafing through the herbal archives at Kew Gardens, the role of storytelling in understanding ecologies, and about discovering female forests. Tune in now and everything will be coming up roses – or mulberries.

References:

Cate Sandilands’ The Good-Natured Feminist
Cate Sandilands’ Rising Tides: Reflections for Climate Changing Times
Cate Sandilands’ “Mulberry Intimacies and the Sweetness of Kinship” (Ecologies of Gender)
Kew Gardens
Queer Nature
https://www.kew.org/kew-gardens/whats-on/queer-nature
Jamaica Osorio
K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary
Rosanna McLaughlin’s Sinkhole: Three Crimes
Callum Angus’ A Natural History of Transition
Joshua Whitehead’s Making Love with the Love
King James I
Alexis Shotwell’s Against Purity
Oriana Schwarzenshuber
Vin Nardizzi
Fortingall Yew
https://storyingclimatechange.com/
Sarah Orne Jewett
Willa Cather
Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness
Diana Souhami
Vita Sackville-West’s The Land
Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s Undrowned and M Archive
Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms At Night

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What might queer ecologies be? 2. Can you compare my definition with Cate’s? What is similar, what is different? 3. What roles can storytelling play in climate change and in queer ecologies? 4. What might the ‘Edenic past’ be and how does it relate to ‘purity’? 5. Which species is your life entangled with? 6. Bonus question: In this episode, Cate explains that “A lot of the most interesting thinking proceeds through story as much as it proceeds through theory.” Do you agree?

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What did queer life look like in Soviet Russia? Rustam Alexander has written two whole books about gay oppression in Russian history and is here to share what they learned in the archives, from diaries, and from doctors’ records. From the revolution to the ‘gay propaganda’ law of 2013, Rustam talks about the state and the history of Russian queerness. We discuss gay activism, the medicalisation of queerness and a very curious shift in legislation…

CW: homophobia, medicalisation of queerness, conversion therapy, aversion therapy

References:

Regulating Homosexuality in Soviet Russia, 1956-91 (Manchester UP, 2021)

Red Closet: The Hidden History of Gay Oppression in the USSR (Manchester UP, 2023)

Russia’s Gay Propaganda Law (2013)

Dan Healey’s Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia

Harry Whyte

Stalin

Tsarist Regime

Bolsheviks

Russian Revolution

GULAG

Doctor Goland

Dennis Altman’s Homosexual Oppression and Liberation

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Was homosexuality always criminalised in Russia? 2. Which are some of Rustam’s main sources? 3. Which major shifts in attitudes towards queerness does Rustam discuss? 4. What does Rustam say about rural and urban spaces? Have you heard about or experienced this spatial dichotomy before? 5. What does oppression mean? Have you ever experienced or witnessed oppression?

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A dog walks into a lesbian bar. I am not sure there is a punchline but there is definitely a podcast episode here. Listen to this chat with my lovely friend and colleague Maria to hear about the conference we will be hosting together, about queerness and/in the city, about seriality and sexuality, and about Maria’s fascinating take on TV and identity.

Follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and help us answer the question of all questions: Berlin or Cologne?

References to Maria’s work:

City Scripts: Narratives of Postindustrial Urban Futures. Co-edited with Barbara Buchenau and Jens Martin Gurr, the Ohio State University Press (2023).

“Surviving the City: Zombies, Run! and the Horrors of Urban Exercise.” Playing the Field II: American Studies, Video Games, and Space, edited by Dietmar Meinel. De Gruyter, 2022. 223-240.

Gender and Seriality: Practices and Politics of Contemporary US Television. Edinburgh: University Press, 2021.

“Defined by Distance: The Roadtrip and Queer Love in Alice Isn’t Dead.” Special Issue “Feminism, Gender, and Podcast Studies,” edited by Julia Hoydis. Gender Forum 77 (2020): 69-89.
http://genderforum.org/1596-2/

Die anderen Ministerpräsidenten – Geschlecht in der printmedialen Berichterstattung über Berufspolitik. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2014.

Other references:

https://queersecondcities.wordpress.com/

queersecondcities@gmail.com

ALUS https://blogs.helsinki.fi/hlc-n/

Zombies, Run!

Lieven Ameel (et al) Literary Second Cities

Scott Herring’s Another Country: Queer Anti-Urbanism

Jack Halberstam

Metronormativity

Stuart Hall

Raymond Williams

Angela McRobbie

How To Get Away With Murder

The Hundred

Maria San Filippo’s The B Word

House

Spiral Gendering

Ben Robbins

James Baldwin’s Another Country (1962)

The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is a second city? 2. What do cities have to do with queerness? 3. Maria briefly speaks about metronormativity. Please find a definition for this term and think about how it is relevant to urban/rural queer spaces. 4. What is seriality? Which kinds of narratives might this concept apply to? 5. How is seriality relevant to gender and sexuality? Maria speaks about bisexuality but maybe you can think of storylines in series that deal with other aspects of queerness?

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We know that queer and trans people have always been around, but how do you go about finding them? Diane Watt is here to show us how it’s done: all you need is lesbian methodology, queer philology, and tiny curtains. Intrigued? Tune in to learn more and to listen to Diane and I discuss shared butch lesbian and transmasculine histories, lesbian nuns, and medieval dildos.

If this all sounds too good to be true, you can make sure that Diane is a real (and really awesome) person by checking @Diane_Watt on Twitter or @medievalist.on.the.run on Instagram. @queerlitpodcast is there too.

References:
Diane Watt, Corinne Saunders (2023) Women and Medieval Literary Culture. Cambridge University Press.
R Magnani, Diane Watt (2018) “Towards a Queer Philology,” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 9:3, 252-268.
Diane Watt (2017) “A Fragmentary Archive: Migratory Feelings in Early Anglo-Saxon Women’s Letters,” Journal of Homosexuality 64:3, 415-429.
N Giffney, MM Sauer, D Watt (2011) The Lesbian Premodern. Palgrave MacMillan.
Diane Watt (2007) Medieval Women's Writing: Works by and for Women in England, 1100-1500. Polity Press.
Diane Watt (2003) Amoral Gower. University of Minnesota Press.
Diane Watt (1997) Secretaries of God. D.S. Brewer.
Margery Kempe
Margaret Paston
Eleanor Rykener
Susan Lanser’s The Sexuality of History
Judith Bennett
Lesbian-like
Roberta Magnani
Elizabeth Freeman
Temporal drag
Iphis and Ianthe
John Gower’s Confessio Amantis
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Christopher Ricks
Lara Farina
St Albans Psalter
Christina of Markyate
How To Read Podcast
https://www.howtoreadpodcast.com/andrew-albin-sounds-medieval-books/
M.W. Bychowski “Trans Textuality: Dysphoria in the Depths of Medieval Skin”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41280-018-0090-6
Duke Humfrey’s Library
Bodleian Library
Huon of Bordeaux
The Museum of Sex Objects
Julian of Norwich
Anne Lister’s Diaries

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What does Diane tell us about records of medieval lesbians in England and Wales? 2. What is queer philology? How is it different from other definitions of philology? 3. What examples of lesbian methods does Diane give? 4. Diane talks about trans book history and makes an interesting observation about scars. What do you think about this? 5. How can literature teach us new things about history when other records might be limited? What might be benefits and limitations of such an approach?

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Join @DrNChakrabarty and I in the magic teapot at @OutandWildlgbtq to talk about reading in queer spaces, writing about race hate crimes, and community at queer events. We also reflect on academic structures and queer encounters, critical race theory and cultural differences in talking about race. It was such a pleasure running into Elizabeth again and if you’re not a fan already, you will be after listening to this!

CW: racism, race hate crimes

References: Elizabeth Chakrabarty’s Lessons in Love and Other Crimes
https://elizabethchakrabarty.com/
https://outandwild.co.uk/
https://www.postcolonial-participation.hhu.de/en/

Questions may want to reflect on after listening:
1. What makes a queer festival queer? 2. What do you think is the role of cultural events, such as readings or performances, in queer spaces? 3. What do you think about the intersectional issues Elizabeth addresses with race and queerness? Does anything in the conversation surprise you? 4. We reflect on readings and discussions in queer spaces versus academic venues. Do you think queer spaces provide something academia cannot?

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In this trip to the Queer Lit archives, (the) Prof Terry Castle (Stanford University) joins me to discuss a corpus I don’t usually think about: lesbian content produced by cis-male authors. We talk about what’s great and not so great about these texts, which moments in literary history opened new doors for queer representation and why literature is such an apt medium to understand the fluidity of gender and attraction. Of course, we talk about many lesbian-authored texts as well and I am particularly grateful that Terry was open to talk about her own story and coming out.

Works by Terry mentioned:
The Professor and Other Writings (Harper Collins, 2010)
“The Lesbianism of Philip Larkin” (Daedalus 136.2, 2007)
The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall (Columbia UP, 2003)
The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture (Columbia UP, 1993)

Other writers and texts mentioned:
Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle
Shakespeare’s As You Like It and Twelfth Night
Ariosto
John Cleland’s Fanny Hill
Diderot
Balzac
Flaubert
Gautier’s Mademoiselle de Maupin
Collette’s Claudine novels
Sue Lanser’s Sexuality of History
Diana Souhami’s No Modernism without Lesbians
Aphra Behn
Natalie Barney
Djuna Barnes
Juvenal
Martial
Sappho
D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow
Henry James’ The Bostonians
Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sea Change” and The Garden of Eden
Gertrude Stein
Marcel Proust
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway
Lord Byron

Ahhhh! We didn’t get to talk about Terry’s art! Check it out on Instagram and Twitter (@ThierryChateau) and give me a follow as well, if you like (@queerlitpodcast).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening to this episode:
1.We briefly reference Terry’s book ‘The Apparitional Lesbian’ (1993). Please do a little bit of research on what the book is about and on what ‘apparitional’ can mean.
2.What is Terry’s favourite time in lesbian literary history and why?
3.Which types of female characters do we find in the 18th-century realist novel? Why is that interesting?
4.Terry talks about male writers producing lesbian literature. What are your thoughts on this? Please try to think through more than one position.
5.Why do writers go back to Ancient Greece to think about homosexuality? From what time onwards? What restricted access to texts?
6.Please comment on flat and round characters in Mrs Dalloway. Do you agree with Terry’s perspective?

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If you haven’t been to the Common Press yet, you’re missing out! But not to worry, Alfonzo and I will transport you there. The Common Press is an intersectional bookshop and event space at the end of Brick Lane and I wish I could live there because the curation of events and books is amazing and the chai latte is fabulous and I found all of my favourite new reads there.

References:
Chris Mounsey
Variabilities
Aisha Shaibu-Lenoir
Above the Stag
Richmix
Sara Ahmed
UK Black Pride
Bi Pride
Freddie Ruddock
BLM
Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe’s Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African Homosexualities
Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends, Since I Laid My Burden Down, Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger Cipher Press

Questions you may want to reflect on after listening:
1. What might make a queer space different from an intersectional space? How could they be similar? 2. How much time do you get to spend in intersectional spaces? 3. What do you need in a space to feel welcome? 4. If you could open a radical bookshop tomorrow, what would you call it?

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In one of the first Queer Lit episodes ever, I got to chat with LaVelle Ridley (University of Michigan) about her doctoral research on black trans life narratives in this one and I must say, she’s a tonic. From important observations on the role of storytelling in political and community activism to the deeply personal process of healing that appropriate representation can initiate, LaVelle covers it all. She’s a scholar, an activist, a pisces (hell, yes!), a creative writer, a mermaid, and an absolute delight to talk to. Don’t miss this one; it’s fun!

Texts and people mentioned:
Paradise on the Margins: Lessons and Dreams from Trans Women of Color
https://www.paradiseonthemargins.com/
Atargatis
https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/
Susan Stryker
Maggie Nelson’s “The Argonauts”
Janet Mock’s “Redefining Realness” (2014) and “Surpassing Certainty” (2017)
CeCe McDonald
Toni Newman
Venus Di'Khadijah Selenite
Laverne Cox and Jac Gares’ “FREE Cece!”
Ridley, LaVelle. "Imagining Otherly: Performing Possible Black Trans Feminist Futures in Tangerine." TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 6.4 (November 2019): 481-490.
LaKisha Simmons
“Tangerine”
Mya Taylor
Kiki Rodriguez
Mj Rodriguez
POSE
Kai Cheng Thom’s “Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars”
Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
https://lavelleridley.wixsite.com/mysite

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Do you think you can tell someone is queer by listening to their voice? Dr Fabio Fasoli is here to tell us all about gay voice stereotypes, auditory gaydar, and voice-based bias. We talk about gay voice acting in 90s sitcoms, learn surprising facts about lesbian voices and employability, and discuss the intersection of foreign accents and gender-nonconforming voices.

References
Fasoli, F., Dragojevic, M., & Rakic, T. (In press). When voice signals nationality and sexual orientation: Speakers’ self-perceptions and perceived stigmatisation. Psychology of Language and Communication.

Fontanele, A. B., de Sousa, L., & Fasoli, F. (2022). Who does discriminate against gay-sounding speakers? The role of prejudice on voice-based hiring decisions in Brazil. Journal of Language and Social Psychology.

Galdi, S., Guizzo, F., & Fasoli, F. (2022). Media representation matters: The effects of exposure to counter-stereotypical gay male characters on heterosexual men’s expressions of discrimination. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. Advanced online publication.

Masi, M., Mattavelli, S., Fasoli, F. & Brambilla, M. (In press). When faces and voices come together: Face width-to-height ratio and voice pitch contribute independently to social perception. European Journal of Social Psychology.

Fasoli, F., & Hegarty, P. (2020). A Leader Doesn’t Sound Lesbian!: The Impact of Sexual Orientation Vocal Cues on Heterosexual Persons’ First Impression and Hiring Decision. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 44(2), 234-255.

Cartei, V., & Reby, D. (2012). Acting gay: Male actors shift the frequency components of their voices towards female values when playing homosexual characters. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 36, 79-93.

Morandini, J. S., Beckman-Scott, D., Madill, C., & Dar-Nimrod, I. (2023). BIDAR: Can Listeners Detect if a Man Is Bisexual from His Voice Alone?. The Journal of Sex Research, 1-13. Advanced online publication.

Fabio Fasoli and Peter Hegarty “Straight talk about gaydar: How do individuals guess others’ sexual orientation?” https://www.in-mind.org/article/straight-talk-about-gaydar-how-do-individuals-guess-others-sexual-orientation

Do I Sound Gay?

David Thorpe

Straight categorisation bias

Sex Education

Will and Grace

David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day

Matteo Lane

Mae Martin

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is ‘auditory gaydar’? Why does Fabio prefer to talk about ‘gay voice stereotype’? 2. What happens when people sound foreign and queer at the same time? What do Fabio’s studies suggest? 3. How do stereotypes about queer voices intersect with gendered expectations of voice and speech patterns? 4. Do you sometimes draw conclusions about someone’s identity through their voice? Do you assume you’re usually correct? 5. Can you think of an example of a gay voice stereotype in literature, film or series? What might the effect of such mediatised stereotypes be?

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Hold on to your pussyhats! The incredible Prof Susan Stryker joins me for this whirlwind through trans histories, nows, and futures, in which we talk about the power of narrative and affect in research and media and about what transness might teach us about possible ways of existing in the world. Susan shares rather entertaining insights from her ground-breaking publications and films, as well as the creative projects she is working on right now. We even get to hear about how she teaches a magnificent work of trans* literature we have discussed in Queer Lit episodes past…

Don’t wait for it! Listen now and follow @susanstryker, @lena_mattheis and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter, and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

Works by Susan mentioned:
https://www.susanstryker.net/
Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution (Seal Press, 2017)
Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria (with Victor Silverman, 2005)
“My Words to Viktor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage” (GLQ, 1994)
Changing Gender: Memoir, History, Manifesto (working title)

Texts, people and quotations mentioned:
Janet Mock
“The Woman-Identified Woman” Manifesto
“The Lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion.”
Patricia Elliot
Lacan
Žižek
Teresa de Lauretis
Hyperobject
Anthropocene
Anna Tsing et al. (eds): Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet
Foucault
Christine Jorgensen
“Christine in the Cutting Room”
60 Minutes
Mike Wallace
Ornette Coleman
Wendy Carlos’ Switched-on Bach
Tape music
Shirley Clarke’s Ornette: Made in America (1985)
Free jazz
Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox (2018)
Jack Sheppard
Mack The Knife
Three Penny Opera
Nabokov’s Pale Fire
Junot Diaz
Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke
Freud
Deleuze and Guattari
Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History and The Arcades Project
Berthold Brecht
Foucault’s Herculine Barbin
Jakob von Uexküll

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How do affect and theory interact in Susan’s work?

1. How can trans* allow us to think about other systems (such as the state or the environment) in new, more open ways?

2. Are you familiar with any trans* figures from literature or history?

3. Which people from trans* history does Susan mention? Please pick one and find out more about them.

4. What is the special formal element Susan highlights in speaking about Confessions of the Fox? Can you connect this to her other thoughts on (media or literary) form and transness? How can the cinematic art of film cutting parallel transitions?

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Seeing double? This here podcast just so happens to share its name with a brilliant LGBTQIA+ bookshop, located in the heart of one of the queer places to be in the UK: Manchester. I met Matthew, the owner, and Jasper, the beagle, in the shop for a chat about their origin story, their book clubs and their exciting next move… Don’t delay, listen (and visit) today!

References
https://www.queerlit.co.uk/
Social Refuge
Feel Good Club
The Cockatoo Club
Daniel Harding’s Gay Man Talking
Matt Cain
Henry Fry
Julia Armfield
Meg-John Barker’s Rewriting the Rules and How to Understand Your Sexuality
https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/
“Non-binary Life” with Meg-John Barker
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/48558860
Alice Oseman
Sheena Patel’s I’m A Fan
Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Questions you may want to think about:
1. If you could create any queer space, what would it look like? 2. How do you find queer books? 3. Matthew talks about many LGBTQIA+ books not being identifiable as such right away. Why do you think that is? 4. Which queer book would you want to be in every school library?

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Queer time flies! Especially when talking to Elizabeth Freeman, who is here, now, to talk about her ground-breaking work on queer temporality, kink, care and kinship. In this momentous episode, Beth minutely lays out her thoughts on temporal drag, deep lez, erotohistoriography and chrononormativity, while also commenting on the relevance of feminist scholarship that is sometimes perceived as dated. Beth’s reading (and watching) recommendations are second to none and I think you will instantly want to dive into all of them.

CW: mentions of queerphobia, transphobia, kink, death and illness

By Beth:
“We’re Only Making Plans for Nigel. In Response to Didier Eribon.” Qui Parle 18.2 (2010), 323-27.
The Wedding Complex (Duke UP, 2002)
Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (Duke UP, 2010)
Beside You in Time (Duke UP, 2019)
Co-Editor (with Tyler Bradway) of Queer Kinship: Erotic Affinities and the Politics of Belonging (Duke UP, 2022)
Co-Editor (with Ellen Samuels) of Crip Temporalities, special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly (2021)
"The Book of Love is Long and Boring: Reading Aloud, Care Work, and Children's Literature." Solicited for Russ Castronovo and Leslie Bow, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Twentieth-Century American Literature.
“Committed to the End: On Caretaking, Rereading, and Queer Theory.” Solicited for Scott Herring and Lee Wallace, eds., Long Term: Essays on Queer Commitment.
“Sacramentality and the Lesbian Premodern,” in The Lesbian Premodern, eds. Noreen Giffneyet. al. (Palgrave Macmillan, New Middle Ages Series, 2011).
“Parasymptomatic Reading: Medical Kink, Care, and the Surface/Depth Debate” Differences. Forthcoming.

Other References:
Boston Marriages
Temporal drag
Judith Butler
Deep Lez
Chrononormativity
Allyson Mitchell Walter
Walter Benjamin
Homogeneous Empty Time
ACT UP!
Simone de Beauvoir
Erotohistoriography
"Queer Kinship" with Tyler Bradway
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/48981244
Elisabeth Subrin’s Shulie
Isaac Julien
Frankfurt School
Historical consciousness
Marx
Chronopolitics
Dana Luciano’s Arranging Grief (2007)
Chronobiopolitics
Foucault’s Discipline and Punish
Biopolitics
Diane Bonder’s The Physis of Love
Cecilia Dougherty’s Coal Miner’s Granddaughter
Bertha Harris’ Lover
Panopticon
Shakers
Quakers
Scott Herring and Lee Wallace’s Long Term: Essays on Queer Committment
Sort of
Work in Progress
Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood
Faulkner

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is queer time? Which two ways of thinking about queer time does Elizabeth Freeman offer in the beginning of the episode? 2. Can you think of an example for temporal drag? Can you describe this phenomenon in your own words? 3. Beth talks about the importance of the body in thinking about queer rhythms. Why is the body so central and which examples does she give? 4. Which concept does Beth use to put pleasure back into history? 5. What is chrononormativity and how does it relate to heteronormativity? 6. What is a queer book you have read more than once? What did this experience of repetition do to your reading?

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Dreams really do come true! In this episode, I get to chat to the legendary originator of the feminist killjoy herself: Sara Ahmed. We talk about who the killjoy is, what she can do for us and why it is important that you can both be her and have her as your companion. Sara talks about the people who inspired her in her work on complaint, happiness, and killjoy feminism: readers, students, poets and fellow theorists like bell hooks, Judith Butler and Audre Lorde. And of course we also talk about killjoy joy.

For some extra #killjoysolidarity, follow @saranahmed and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter or @saranoahmed and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram. Bonus: you’ll get to see Sara’s super sweet dogs Poppy and Bluebell!

CW: discussions of misogyny, homophobia, and racism

Referenced work by Sara Ahmed:
The Feminist Killjoy Handbook (2023)
Complaint! (2021) What’s The Use (2019)
Living a Feminist Life (2017)
The Promise of Happiness (2010)
Queer Phenomenology (2006)
The Cultural Politics of Emotions (2004)
Feministkilljoys.com
Saranahmed.com

Other References:
Gay’s The Word
bell hooks
Audre Lorde
Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy
Judith Butler
Lauren Berlant
Heidi Safia Mirza
Audre Lorde’s “A Litany for Survival”

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Who or what is the feminist killjoy?
2. Why is it important that the killjoy is both within and outside of us?
3. What does Sara say about the role of poetry in her work? Which poet and thinker does she reference here?
4. What does Sara say about killjoy joy? Have you ever experienced killjoy joy?
5. Please read up on Sara’s work on happiness. How has happiness been instrumentalised against women and minoritised people?
6. Do you think you’re a feminist killjoy? Why or why not?

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‘Cause we are living in a material world, Kadji Amin is here to talk about trans materialism! Kadji’s work is all about exploring what being trans means beyond gender identity. What are material reasons to transition or transgress gender expectations? How did our trancestors live as their chosen gender? And why does the history of trans women look quite different from that of trans men? In this episode, we talk about all of this and about how and why categories such as trans, cis, hetero and homo came to shape our queer lives.

CW: homophobia, transphobia, medicalisation of queerness, racism

References:
https://www.kadjiamin.com/
Kadji Amin’s Disturbing Attachments (Duke UP, 2017)
“Queer Form.” Coedited with Amber Jamilla Musser and Roy Pérez. Special issue, ASAP/Journal 2.2.
Amin, Kadji. (2023) “Taxonomically Queer?: Sexology and New Queer, Trans, and Asexual Identities,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 29.1: 91-107.
Amin, Kadji. (2022)“We Are All Non-Binary: A Brief History of Accidents,” Representations 158.1: 106-119.
Emily Skidmore
Jen Manion
Murray Hill
Empiricism
Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality Vol. 1
Magnus Hirschfeld
“Trans Childhood” with Jules Gill-Peterson
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/46314264
Susan Stryker’s Transgender History
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49782773
Robert Stoller
Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues
https://lesliefeinberg.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Stone-Butch-Blues-by-Leslie-Feinberg.pdf

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Kadji talks about a ‘flattening effect’ of the term trans. What does this mean? Which dissymetries does Kadji mention? 2. How does Kadji describe the diverging historical lineages of transmasculine and transfeminine people? 3. What can be material reasons to transition? Please give at least two examples. 4. Kadji speaks about trans idealising cis. What does this mean? 5. Which term did Robert Stoller coin and to what end? 6. Why does Kadji find it useful to think about trans without gender identity? What do you think about this?

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A whole entire episode about thriving queer spaces? I know I’ve been waiting for it. Come follow Jack Gieseking and I down the queerness hole, through the dking glass, right into C+ntoland. The extraordinarily lovely Jack and I chat about transdisciplinarity, queer geographies, Eve Sedgwick, accessibility, hot water bottles and lesbian poetry. Jack explains what queers want from their spaces, why we crave novelty, what constellations are and, most importantly, why dke and lesbian bars are neither dead nor dying.

Have you come across any poems or zines about d*ke bars? Please let Jack and I know on Twitter: @jgieseking and @queerlitpodcast. You can also find Jack on Mastodon and Instagram and look at pictures of the podcast cats on Instagram.

CW: transphobia, homophobia, antiqueerness and illness

References:
http://jgieseking.org/
A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers, 1983-2008 (NYU Press, 2020)
Gender, Sexuality and Space Reading List
http://jgieseking.org/current-projects/gender-sexuality-space-reading-list/
Eve Sedgwick
Cindi Katz
Nancy K. Miller
Martin Manalansan
Kath Weston
Jack Halberstam’s In A Queer Time and Place
Joelle Taylor’s C+not & Othered Poems
Caroline Bird’s Air Year
Pat Parker’s “Where Will You Be” (1978)
https://soundcloud.com/ajmcclenon/pat-parker-where-will-you-be
The Lexington Club
She Bar
Jack Gieseking’s D*ke Bars: Queer Trans Spaces for the End Times
Magnus Hirschfeld
The Marlborough
Vanilla (@ vanillagirlsmcr )
Melissa Wright’s Disappearing Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism
Femicide
The Ruby Fruit ( @therubyfruit )

ResearchInFocus Jack Gieseking (video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWzc43-l2BI
ACT UP
Lesbian Avengers
Queer Nation
“Queer Data” with Carl Bonner-Thompson
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/48558974
Metronormativity
“Queer Cities” with Davy Knittle
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/46141754
Cait McKinney’s Information Activism

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How does Jack describe environmental psychology and which other fields of research influence their work? 2. In Jack’s approach, how are locations in books or films relevant to queer geographies? Are you familiar with any literary or media representations of queer spaces? 3. What are Jack’s thoughts about common narratives of lesbian/d*ke bars? 4. What are ‘constellations’ in Jack’s work? 5. We talk about the contrasts between digital and physical queer spaces and constant versus ephemeral queer venues. Are any of these significant in your life?

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Run, don’t walk! Lindsey Freeman (Simon Fraser University) joins me for a sprint through their most recent book on running. We talk about running while queer, running while female-bodied, running while gender-nonconforming… and we discuss all the wonderful things that a little jog can do.

If you’re in for the long run, follow @lindseyafreeman on Twitter or @atomic_lindsey_freeman on Instagram. Queer Lit is ambling along at @queerlitpodcast.

CW: antiqueer and antitrans violence, racism, murder

References:

Lindsey Freeman. Running. Duke UP, 2023.
http://www.lindseyfreeman.net/
Alan Turing
Lindsey Freeman. “The Beginning of a Montage of Alan Turing” Queer Runnings Magazine, issue 1: beginnings, 2022.
https://readymag.com/u102585954/3640808/ https://www.queerrunnings.com/
@mister.samo
“Queers in Sports” with Gabriel Knott-Fayle
https://www.spreaker.com/user/14328383/queer-lit-gabriel
99% Invisible “On Average”
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/
Eliud Kipchoge
Lauren Fleshman
Alison Bechdel’s The Secret to Superhuman Strength
Ahmaud Arbery
Hazel Meyer
Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why are gender and sexuality relevant to a sport like running? Are they? 2. In which contexts do we discuss vulnerability on this episode? You may want to learn more about vulnerability by reading Judith Butler’s work on the subject. 3. Lindsey and I discuss our different experiences of sports and queerness. What is your experience? 4. In the context of running trainers, we discuss why being inclusive is good for everyone. Can you think of another example where inclusive design benefits all?

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What do inkblots have to do with activism? And where can I do a Master’s in that? The incredible Katherine Hubbard (University of Surrey) is here to tell you! Kat works in queer history, sociology and psychology and does a lot of brilliant scholarly and activist work about the complicated historical relationship of queers and psychology. She is also one of the people who have created the brand-new Master’s programme in sex, gender and sexuality at the University of Surrey. Kat joins me in the podcasting room to talk about why she loves this new programme and why queer academics need to talk more about emotions in teaching, research, and in the archives.

Tune in now to learn about how to queer the Rorschach test! You may or may not need a tote bag. And if it tickles your fancy, why not follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter.

CW: transphobia, medicalised queerness, aversion therapy, conversion therapy, mentions of sex

References:
Sex, Gender and Sexualities MSc
https://www.surrey.ac.uk/postgraduate/sex-gender-and-sexualities-msc
SGS Sex, Gender and Sexualities Research Group
https://sgs.surrey.ac.uk/
Queer Ecologies Podcast
https://anchor.fm/queer-ecologies-pod
Manchester Science Festival
Sally Guilford
https://sallygilford.com/
Hermann Rorschach
https://www.blossomfoundation.org.uk/
@live.blossom (Instagram)
@blossomfound (Twitter)
Rebecca Wynter
Aversion therapy
Kate Davison
Hel Spandler
Sarah Marks
Conversion Therapy Report: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/news/conversion-therapy-full-document-final-8-june-2022.pdf
Behaviourism
Conditioning
B. F. Skinner
Ivan Pavlov
FutureSex
https://www.futuresex.info/
David Griffiths
“Medieval Disney Queers” with Amy Louise Morgan
Fabio Fasoli
Queer Friction
Tribady
Tribbing
Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele’s Queer: A Graphic History

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is the Rorschach test? 2. Have you heard of conditioning or behavourism before? If so, in which context? 3. What practices constitute aversion ‘therapy’? 4. Can you think of a queer film or book that depicts conversion ‘therapy’? 5. Please look up the term ‘tribady’. What are historical meanings and uses of the term? What does it mean in contemporary use? 6. Have you ever had an emotional response to doing queer research?

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Who is your favourite queer Black character with a disability? Whether you can think of ten or none, this episode is for you. I had the most fun chatting with D’Arcee Charington Neal (Ohio State University) about all the places we can find queer Black characters with disabilities and the wondrous ways in which they shape narratives. As a researcher and creative writer, D’Arcee is interested in audio rhetoric and audio narratives that go far beyond your average Audible experience. Listen now to find out how the audio experience captures minoritised stories and what André 3000 has to do with all of this.

Want to keep up with the magical world of D’Arcee’s research? Follow @DrChairington on Twitter and check out @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

CW: illness, trauma, coming out, homophobia, discrimination, racism, ableism
Light spoilers for Everything Everywhere All at Once

References:
D’Arcee Charington Neal. “Mutant and (Not) Proud: Disability Erasure in X-Men's Storm.” Cartoons of Future Past: Cultural Critiques of X-Men: The Animated Series (University of Mississippi Press, forthcoming)
D’Arcee Charington Neal. “Who is Asking? Black Arthurian Legendmaking in N.K. Jemisin's Far Sector.” Arthuriana (forthcoming)
Narrative ISSN
André 3000
Outkast “Where Are My Panties? (Interlude)”
Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman
James McAvoy
Taron Egerton
Modern Love Podcast “A Heart Outrun”
Colin Farrell
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/fashion/colin-farrell-modern-love-podcast.html
The Shade Room @theshaderoom
The Breakfast Club @breakfastclubam
The Tom Joyner Morning Show
Steve Harvey @steveharveyfm
Ebonics
Sheneneh Jenkins
Martin
AAVE African American Vernacular English
Henry Louis Gates
NeNe Leakes
Judith Butler
Performativity
Cece Adams
Storm
X-Men
Afrophantasm
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower
Hyper-Empathy Syndrome
Jada Pinkett
Ariel
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s The Future is Disabled
N.K. Jemisin’s Far Sector
Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn
Green Lantern
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Michelle Yeoh
Angela Bassett
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Encanto
https://www.vox.com/culture/23025832/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-parental-apology-fantasy-turning-red

Links to D’Arcee’s podcast episodes:
Episode 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/100Y7hChK3DR8aAPfot1QoWERPKwzKQi_/view?usp=drivesdk
Episode 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CJmqUxUBfT7oLcYIoHVwd-psMSXCsK40/view?usp=drivesdk
Episode 3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mg2j2STi4pfaJVRXo1sm4GPLKFyqM1Uj/view?usp=drivesdk

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. We speak a lot about the power of audio narratives. Why does D’Arcee find this format crucial in articulating minoritized stories? 2. D’Arcee speaks about Afrophantasm. What does this mean and who coined this term? 3. Can you think of an example of Afrophantasm in literature or culture? 4. Can you think of another film, series or book that uses the ‘parents apologising’ trope? What relevance does this hold in a queer setting? 5. Please look up the term disability justice. What does this mean to you?

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This fortnight, we’re going east (and back in history) with fabulous historian Tuğçe Kayaal (Furman University). Tuğçe explains how she queers history and the archives, how she researches homoerotic intimacies in poetry and advice books, and what religion has to do with morals, relationships and friendships. She talks about the most frequently misunderstood aspects of the Ottoman empire and what it’s like teaching homoeroticism in texts from the Middle East.

If you want to learn more, why not follow @tkayaal and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter? The podcast also produces mediocre Instagram content for your perusal.

CW: We discuss paedophilia versus intergenerational relationships, sexual violence, homophobia, and religion.

References:

Miss Melina
Freddie Mercury
Beylik
George-Louis Buffon
Babayan, Kathryn. The City as Anthology: Eroticism and Urbanity in Early Modern Isfahan. Stanford University Press, 2021.
Semerdjian, Elyse. “Naked Anxiety: Bathhouses, Nudity, and Dhimmi Woman in 18th-Century-Aleppo.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45, no. 4 (2013): 651-676.
Kayaal, Tuğçe. “ ‘ Twisted Desires,’ Boy Lovers, and Male-Male Cross-Generational Sex in the Late Ottoman Empire (1912-1918).” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 46, no.1 (2020): 31-46.
Najmabadi, Afsaneh. Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieities of Iranian Modernity. University of California Press, 2005.
Andrews, Walter G. & Mehmet Kalpakli. Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005.
Kobabe, Mai. Gender Queer: A Memoir. Oni Press, 2019. Sufism Sunni Mustafa Galib, Fahişeler Hayatı ve Redaet-i Ahlakiyye, 1922 Enderunlu Fazıl, Zenanname, 1695 Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali, Mevaidün Nefais Fi Kavaidil Mecalis, 16th Century.
Konya
The Queery

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is the Ottoman Empire?
2. Which factors play into the increasing emphasis on procreational heteronormative sex in the late Ottoman Empire?
3. Does Tuğçe see Sufism or Sunni Islam as more open to same-sex desire?
4. How is female sexuality viewed in the examples Tuğçe mentions?
5. What does the term cross-generational mean in the contexts we discuss? What are your thoughts on childhood in a historical context?

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In this dynamic discussion, Dr Gabriel Knott-Fayle (University of Calgary) and I talk about cisgenderism, heteronormativity and masculinity in sports and sports media. We discuss how trans* and queer bodies are treated and medicalised in narratives surrounding different sports but also how (amateur) sporting environments can be affirming and create safe spaces. Although as queers so many of us have negative encounters with sports, it can also be a great place to socialise with other members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community and to treat our strong bodies with the love they deserve. Whether you’re a Sporty Queer or not, this episode should not be missed!

The ball is in your court: Follow @DrKnottFayle and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter and let us know about your queer sporting experience!

CW: transphobia, homophobia, bullying, hate speech, antiqueer violence

References:

Knott-Fayle, Gabriel, Elizabeth Peel, and Gemma L. Witcomb. "(Anti-) feminism and cisgenderism in sports media." Feminist Media Studies (2021): 1-18.

Gender Diversity and Sport: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Increasing Inclusivity (edited by Elizabeth Peel and Gemma Witcomb, Routledge, 2022)

Knott-Fayle, Gabriel. “World Cup 2022: Men’s soccer must stop silencing activism and allyship.” The Conversation (2022). https://theconversation.com/world-cup-2022-mens-soccer-must-stop-silencing-activism-and-allyship-195087 “

Queer Wizards and Neurodiversity” with Jes Battis https://www.spreaker.com/episode/51938443
Martina Navratilova
The Politician
Justin Fashanu
Isabel Waidner’s Sterling, Karat, Gold
Alison Bechdel’s The Secret to Superhuman Strength
DSD Differences of Sexual Development
Thomas Page McBee’s Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man
Chilling Adventured of Sabrina

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What are Gabriel’s main research interests and what do they have to do with queerness in sports? 2. Gabriel speaks about cisgenderism in sports media. What does this mean? 3. In this episode, we identify some of the ways in which trans athletes are presented in negative ways by various media. Can you name some of the mechanisms we discuss? Feel free to add other and/or examples. 4. How can sporting environments be affirmative for queer people? 5. How do you see sports represented in queer narratives? Can you think of an example?

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Legend-alarm! We have queer anthropology’s parent on the podcast: Prof Esther Newton joins me to talk about queer spaces, drag shows, lesbian festivals, and about how all the lesbians ended up in Cherry Grove. Esther explains why every queer person should experience being in the majority at least once in their life and how this might allow you to see things you have never quite seen before. She talks about her personal relationship to queer spaces, communities and research and about why everyone’s so into Gentleman Jack.

Still looking for the cherry on top of Cherry Grove? Check out Esther’s work here (https://www.esther-newton.com) and follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter.

Works by Esther:

Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America (Prentice Hall, 1972; University of Chicago Press, 1978)
Womenfriends with Shirley Walton (Friends Press, 1976)
"The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 9.4 (1984): 557-575.
Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America's First Gay and Lesbian Town (Duke UP, 1993)
Margaret Mead Made me Gay: Personal Essays, Public Ideas (Duke UP, 2000)
My Butch Career: A Memoir (Duke UP, 2018)

Other References:

Judith Butler
Chicago School
@someprefercake
Jean Carlomusto
https://www.esthernewtonmademegay.com/
Queering Desire (forthcoming collection, Routledge, 2023)
Colorado Springs
Jack Parlett’s Fire Island: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise (Granta Books, 2022)
“Older Lesbians” with Jane Traies https://www.spreaker.com/episode/51171899
Provincetown
Anne Lister Birthday Week
Gentleman Jack (Season 1)
Jill Livington’s Female Fortune and Nature’s Domain
Sally Wainwright
Shibden After Dark Podcast
Leanne Mertzman and Mary Schwartz
The L Word

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Where did Esther Newton’s research journey start? 2. Which event caused the lesbian community in Cherry Grove to grow? Have you heard of similar dynamics in other contexts? 3. Which majority queer spaces other than Cherry Grove do we mention in the episode? Can you think of others? 4. Why does Esther find that Anne Lister is such an important figure in queer history? 5. When it comes to queer rights, how can things get better and worse at the same time?

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Be it about Marmite or podcasts, I’ve always believed that more is more, so here is part two of the end-of-year special, where I ask former Queer Lit guests: What is the queerest thing you did this year? Featuring: Susan Stryker, Nick McGlynn, J.P. Der Boghossian, and Jas Morgan. What a cast!

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Oh, yes, you heard right: It’s a festive end-of-year special! Making resolutions and rules is not very queer, so we are celebrating the year in all its gaiety instead! Tune in to hear about the queerest things my Queer Lit guests did this year.

References:

Dyking Out
“Queer Rural Spaces and Asexualities” with Joe Jukes
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/48480045
CTSG Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender (University of Brighton)
The Radical Faeries of Albion
Lesbian Lives
“Sappho Fest” with Leah Davidson
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/51209111
“Activists, Artists and Academics” with Katherine O’Donnell
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49146151
Irish Women’s Camp
“Lesbian Ghosts” with Naoise Murphy
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49146044
Kate O’Brien
Mara Gold
@sapphic_scholar
“Non-binary Life“ with Meg-John Barker
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/48558860
Bonnie Badenoch
Sara Ahmed
Jack Halberstam
https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/self/queer-joy/
The Queery
Carol Ann Duffy’s The Frost Fair
“Dressing Dykes” with Eleanor Medhurst
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49146115
@dressingdykes
https://dressingdykes.com/
Grace Ellis‘ Flung Out of Time
Tillie Walden’s On A Sunbeam
Lumberjanes
Carol

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Have you ever thought about how your queer life is connected to the land that you live it on? In this episode, Joshua Whitehead (University of Calgary) will take you on a Two-Spirit Indigiqueer journey from Stonewall in New York to the Forks in Winnipeg. Josh talks about how healing communion with the land is, how the stories of our queer bodies need to be read and told in relation to place, and about how genre can be as violent and racist of a category as gender. Would you like your serving of decolonial queer theory and creativity with a dash of Cardi B today? Then this is the episode for you.

If you’re anything like me, you will absolutely need to see photographic evidence of Josh’s shepherd Chief now. Head over to Insta or Twitter and follow @jwhitehead204. The podcast cats are purring over at @queerlitpodcast.

Works by Joshua mentioned:

full-metal indigiqueer (2017)
Jonny Appleseed (2018)
Making Love With the Land (2022)

Other people, texts and terms mentioned:

Thor Ragnarok
Peguis
Cardi B
Oji-Cree
Nehiyaw
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson As We’ve Always Done and “Indigenous Queer Normativity”
Anishinaabe
Ojibwe
Biotext
Biostory
Post-contact nations
Métis
Myra Laramee
Stonewall
Marsha P Johnson
Sylvia Rivera
Wendigo
Fred Wah
Michael Ondaatje
David Palumbo-Liu
Garth Greenwell
Sky Lee
Daniel Health Justice
Wonderworking
Cherokee
“Two-Spirit Literature” with Lisa Tatonetti
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/50303918
“Queer Indigenous Literature” with Jas Morgan
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/50152848
Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki
Studio Ghibli
Maori: pukapuka
Otâcimow
ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ nēhiyawēwin
Michel Foucault
Frantz Fanon
Sigmund Freud
Judith Butler
Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics
Gregory Scofield’s Thunder Through My Veins
Anne of Green Gables
Little House on the Prairie
Kihtwam

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.How does Josh describe queer relationships and interactions with the land? Which examples does he give?

2.What does Two-Spirit mean? When was the term created?

3.Which community coined the term ‘biotext’ and how does Josh alter it to suit his own writing?

4.Josh talks about the work the reader has to put in to follow the syllabics in “A Geography of Queer Woundings”. How does this relate to ‘glossing’ in post-colonial theory?

5.Reflect on whether or how your own body plays a role when you read or write queer texts, whether that is ‘theory’ or ‘fiction’ or anything in between.

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Let’s get magical! In this episode, Prof Jes Battis (University of Regina) explains why magic is queer (or why queerness is magical?) and how wizards and witches live out their queerness in medieval texts as well in contemporary retellings. Jes also conjures up wonderful examples of how neurodiversity, queerness and witchcraft are all linked. Side effects of listening to this spellbinding episode may include: a deeper understanding of neuroqueerness, latent transness turning into overt trans joy, an intense desire to read more young adult fiction.

Ready to get enchanted? Follow @jesbattis and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram for that extra glamour.

Work by Jes mentioned:

Occult Special Investigator and Parallel Parks series
Mastering the Game of Thrones (edited by Jes Battis and Susan Johnston)
Supernatural Youth (edited by Jes Battis)
Blood Relations: Chosen Family in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel
Thinking Queerly: Medievalism, Wizardry, and Neurodiversity in YA Texts
The Winter Knight ( @ecwpress )
https://jbattis.com/

Other works, people and characters mentioned:

Gandalf
Lord of the Rings
Nick Walker
Remi Yergeau
Neuroqueer
Merlin
Grisandolus
Gabrielle Bychowski
https://www.publicmedievalist.com/author/gabrielle-bychowski/
The Prose Merlin
Taliesin
“Medieval Disney Queers” with Amy Louise Morgan
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/51169776
Morgan Le Fay
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Spellman
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Tiresias
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
Queer As Fact: “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
https://queerasfact.podbean.com/e/sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight/
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon
Willow and Tara (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy’s Once and Future
Percival
T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone (The Once and Future King)
“Wildness, Masculinity and Swimming Pools” with Jack Halberstam
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/46140271
James Knowles’ King Arthur and his Knights (illustrated by Louis Rhead)
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s The History of the Kings of Britain and the Life of Merlin
Compulsory able-bodiedness
Robert McRuer
ablebodied gaze
Potterverse
Tolkien’s The Hobbit
Ursula K. Le Guin
Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story
Nnedi Okorafor
Nicola Griffith’s Hild
T.L. Huchu’s The Library of the Dead and Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments
Imogen Binnie’s Nevada

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.Which queer wizards does Jes talk about?
2.You are probably familiar with several of the supernatural beings mentioned in the episode. Have you ever thought about them as queer or neurodiverse?
3.Jes and I talk about the parallels between compulsory able-bodiedness and compulsory heterosexuality. What are these parallels? Do you agree with this line of thinking?
4.Please look up at least one of the scholars mentioned in the episode and find out a little more about their work.
5.Can you think of other examples of wizards, witches or supernatural beings that can be read as queer or neurodiverse?

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Spoiler alert: Jane Traies is the best. And this episode is proof that if you don’t know any older, wiser lesbians already, you’re missing out! Jane talks to me about (in)visibility across queer generations, about queer kinship and (very efficient) lesbian networks, about the stories of LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers and about biphobia and exclusionism. From being friends with your ex to Peg Cruikshank’s favourite flannel shirt, we serve you only the most sapphic topics.

Want to be part of Jane’s network now? Follow @JaneTraies and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter. If you want to see what a colourblind person’s Insta looks like, follow @queerlitpodcast.

Texts and people mentioned:

“The Butch” with Amy Tooth Murphy
Jane Traies’ “Old Lesbians in the UK: Community and Friendship” Journal of Lesbian Studies (2015)
Sally Munt
Peg Cruikshank
Monika Kehoe
Hester Thrale
Samuel Johnson
Jay Taverner’s Liberty ( @jaytaverner )
Carol S. Becker’s Unbroken Ties: Lesbian Ex-Lovers (1988)
Jane Traies’ The Lives of Older Lesbians and Now You See Me
LISG Lesbian Immigration Support Group ( @lisg_manchester )
https://lisg.uk/
Jane Traies’ Free to Be Me
Refugee Tales ( @refugeetales )
Maureen Duffy’s The Microcosm
Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.Why is Jane interested in studying older lesbians?
2.What role do you think age, age groups and generations play in queer kinship? How do changing laws and societal attitudes play into this?
3.How might friendship take on a different role in the lives of (older and younger) lesbians and queer people?
4.Jane and I talk about the word lesbian and its association with identity politics. How would you summarise Jane’s thoughts on this and what are yours?
5.What is the first queer book you remember reading?

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Once upon a midnight dreary, Queer Lit pondered all things eerie… and believe me, this episode is quaint and curious queer horror galore! Horror writer and researcher Lucy Holmes take us on a trip down vampire lane and chills me to the bone with everything from 1930s gay directors to 1970s lesbian bloodsuckers to nonbinary and trans representation in contemporary horror shows. Lucy also reminds us that horror, just like your queer identity, can mean anything you want it to mean. And yes, of course, we talk Buffy and Alien!

If you’re not too spooked out, follow @lulu_pew and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter and tell all your scary friends.

Texts by Lucy mentioned:

“Horror in the Closet” in Hear Us Scream ( @hearusscream )
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hear-Us-Scream-Voices-Horror/dp/B09M7F3SN3
“Breaking Bloody Binaries”
https://www.hearusscream.com/editorials/breaking-bloody-binaries
“Silencing Sapphics”
https://www.hearusscream.com/editorials/silencing-sapphics-a-mirror-image-between-killing-eve-and-bly-manor
“Sapphics Bite Back” in Ghouls Magazine

Other texts and concepts mentioned:

Hays Code
Ghoulfriends Podcast ( @GhoulFriendPod )
https://mobile.twitter.com/ghoulfriendpod
“Queerness and Race in Gothic and Horror” with Maisha Wester
Abigail Waldron’s Queer Screams
Dragula
James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931)
Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope
Fear Street
Chucky

UntoldTales

Ripley
Alien
Evil Dead
Murnau’s Nosferatu
Max Schreck
Killing Eve
Bly Manor
First Kill
Dracula’s Daughter
Buffy
True Blood
Freaky (Blumhouse)
Misha Osherovich
They/Them
Scream
Wings
Marlene Dietrich
Dandy
Bury your gays trope
The L Word
The Wilds

SaveGentlemanJack with Sarah Wingrove

Yellowjackets
Assassination Nation
Bit
Interview with a Vampire
Daughters of Darkness
Vampire Lesbos
The Vampire Lovers
The Hunger
Final Girls Podcast
Queen of the Damned
Let the right one come in
Elizabeth Bathory
Vincent Price
House of Haunted Hill
“Medieval Disney Queers” with Amy Louise Morgan
Sleepaway Camp
Candyman
Shudder
Queer for Fear
Hannibal
Mads Mikkelsen
Tag
Gillian Anderson
Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy
Velvet Buzzsaw
Buffering the Vampire Slayer
Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.How would you define horror?
2.Why might queer people be drawn to horror as a genre? Which possible answer does Lucy give? What do you think?
3.What is potentially problematic about queer representation in horror?
4.Have you ever identified with a monster? If so, which one?
5.Please look up Jack Halberstam’s work on queer monsters. What do you notice about his approach?

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It’s crossover time! In this week’s episode, Queer Lit enters a unicorn union with This Queer Book Saved My Life!, a brilliant new podcast by J.P. Der Boghossian. Before we get to the books that were our personal saviours, J.P. and I talk about The Queer Armenian Library – a digital resource of queer Armenian texts, shows, films, poetry and so much more. In addition to creating incredibly impactful projects such as these two, J.P. is also extraordinarily lovely to chat to. We laugh, we sigh… an unmissable double feature that will turn you gay on the spot.

Want to keep up to date with what J.P. does next? I sure do, which is why I follow @jpderboghossian and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram.

Texts, people and resources mentioned:

@jpderboghossian
https://jpderboghossian.com/
The Queer Armenian Library ( @readtheQAL )
https://queerarmenianlibrary.com/
This Queer Book Saved My Life ( @thisqueerbook )
https://thisqueerbook.com/
GALAS Gay and Lesbian Armenian Society
Armenian Weekly
Mika Artyan’s Unzipped: Gay Armenia
http://gayarmenia.blogspot.com/
Bookshop.org ( @bokshop_org_uk )
Arlene Voski Avakian’s Lion Woman’s Legacy
Moshin Hamid’s Exit West
Michael Cunningham’s A Home at the End of the World
Kate Davies’ In at the Deep End
Chloe Caldwell’s Women
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and The Secret to Superhuman Strength
Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House
Lara Lillibridge, author of Girl-ish and Mama Mama
Nancy Agabian, author of Me as Her Again
Dr. Joe Perazzo – Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing
Greg Louganis’ Breaking the Surface
S.A. Chant’s Peter Darling
The Queery (@thequeerybtn )
Andrea Gibson’s “Orlando” ( @andrewgibby )
Mary Lambert
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
Michael Barakiva’s One Man Guy
Heartstopper

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What role can specialised collections like the Queer Armenian Library play for individuals but also for queer life and culture more broadly?
2.If you were to create a queer library, what special kind of queer literature would it house?
3.What does JP say about the role of representation in queer lives and literatures? What are your thoughts?
4.Please find one scholarly text that you could use to write about the role of representation for marginalised communities. Which one did you pick and why?
5.And of course I must ask: Which queer book saved your life?

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Oo-De-Lally! Dr Amy Louise Morgan (she/her, Surrey University) tells me tales of feminist dragons, gender-nonconforming foxes, wild princesses and all kinds of other queer characters from Disney’s medieval(ish) films. We compare favourite VHS tapes, most fantastic princesses, and try to figure out whether we (or was it just me?) wanted to be, or be with, Robin Hood. Amy also tells me all about Disney’s problematic relationship to queerness, why queer fans still relate to it so much, and what positive changes are possibly in store. Golly, what an episode!

If this episode awoke the medieval fanperson in you, follow @AmyLouise921 and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter. @queerlitpodcast is also on Insta. No dragons though, just cats.

Texts, characters and films mentioned:

Morgan, Amy Louise. "“To Play bi an Orchardside”: Orchards as Enclosures of Queer Space in Lanval and Sir Orfeo." The Medieval and Early Modern Garden in Britain. Routledge, 2018. 91-101.

Locus amoenus

Sleeping Beauty

Sword in the Stone

Robin Hood

Brave

Lady Kluck

Jack Halberstam’s Female Masculinity

Maleficent

Perceforest (c. 1330-1340)

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Charles Perrault

The Little Mermaid

Pinocchio

Snow White

Sir Orfeo

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

Madam Mim

Loathly Lady trope

GiveElsaAGirlfriend

Merida

Frozen

Wreck it Ralph

Disney Princesses

SGS episode

Brenda Chapman

ELMS

Robyn Muir

Mulan

Atlantis

Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Belle

Beauty and the Beast

Lightyear

Luca

Hays Code

The Reluctant Dragon

Robert Benchley

Kenneth Grahame

How To Train Your Dragon

Jack Halberstam’s Wild Things

“Wildness, Masculinity and Swimming” with Jack Halberstam

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. First things first, what is your favourite Disney film and why?

2. What do you think is the most problematic Disney film and why?

3. We speak quite a bit about anthropomorphised characters. Why do these offer themselves for a queer reading?

4. How does queerness relate to monstrosity and fairies? Can you think of other monsters that are frequently read as queer?

5. Please look up Jack Halberstam. Why do you think Amy recommends his book in this context

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Listen up, glitterati, we have some eco-friendly scholarship coming your way: Prof Nicole Seymour (California State University, Fullerton) shares her thoughts on queer ecologies, trans ecologies, petrol masculinities, trashy environmentalism and, most importantly, glitter. In a sparkling synopsis of all things queer environmentalism, Nicole explains why the doom-and-gloom narrative of climate justice is so passé and encouragement and future-oriented thinking are on the rise. Nicole even shares her favourite ecowarrior drag queens.

The future is… still pretty bleak! To make learning about positive change more fun, follow @nseymourPHD and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter. @queerlitpodcast is also on Instagram.

Work by Nicole mentioned:

Strange Natures: Futurity, Empathy, and the Queer Ecological Imagination
Bad Environmentalism: Affect and Dissent in the Ecological Age @UMinnPress
Glitter @BloomsburyAcad
Seymour, Nicole. "’Good animals’: The past, present, and futures of trans ecology." Transecology. Routledge, 2020. 190-204.

Other texts and people mentioned:

Simon Amstell
Adrienne Maree Brown
Earth Overshoot Day
Petrol cultures
Daggett, Cara. "Petro-masculinity: Fossil fuels and authoritarian desire." Millennium 47.1 (2018): 25-44.
Madeleine Bavley
Reich, Nicholas Tyler. "Truck Sluts, Petrosexual Countrysides, and Trashy Environmentalisms." Transgender Studies Quarterly 9.1 (2022): 65-83.
Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island
The Bearded Ladies Cabaret @beardedladiescabaret (Insta) @KnowYourBeards (Twitter)
CAConrad @caconrad88
The Trolls
Timothy Morton
“Queering Nothing” with Lee Edelman
Bruce Bagemihl
Callum Angus’ A Natural History of Transition
Oliver Baez Bendorf @oliverbaezbendorf (Insta) @queerpoetics (Twitter)
“Drag and Panto” with Nick Cherryman
Pattie Gonia @pattiegonia
Shiloh Krupar’s Hot Spotter’s Report
Tammie Brown
RuPaul’s Drag Race

plasticfreepride

Carson McCuller’s The Member of the Wedding and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Jen Shapland’s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
Maria Sulimma

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What is queer ecology or what can it be? What is trans ecology?
2.What are petrol cultures or petrol masculinities?
3.How does drag relate to environmentalism?
4.Nicole talks about modes to convey environmentalism. Which modes or narrative patterns do we discuss? Can you think of others?
5.What does glitter mean to you?

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Join us on the Lesbian beach for a sapphic special episode with someone I am very lucky to call a friend: Leah Davidson. Leah is a queer therapist, a hiking dyke, a lesbian mom, an extremely clever reader and an absolute joy. On the beach in Skala Eressos, we talk about the early days of the lesbian* community that travels to Lesvos every summer, in search of connection, queer roots, and poetry. Tune in now to transport yourself to the Sappho Festival and learn about some of Leah’s favourite reads.

Find out more about lovely, lovely Leah on leahdavidson.com or by following Leah Davidson Psychotherapy on Facebook. For some visual impressions of the festival and the island, follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter.

Places, people and texts mentioned:

https://lesvossolidarity.org/en/
@lesvossolidarity
@safepassage.lesvossolidarity
@gagaanimalcare
Meg-John Barker
Tzeli Hadjidimitriou
https://www.odoiporikon.com/node/155
Selby Wynn Schwartz’ After Sappho
Natalie Barney
Renée Vivien
Diana Souhami
Mytilene
Carmen Maria Machado’s In The Dream House
Carolina De Robertis's Cantoras
Jane Traies
Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby!
Judy Grahn’s A Woman is Talking to Death and Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds
Eleanor Medhurst ( @dressingdykes )
Laura Kate Dale (ed.) Gender Euphoria
Ohana ( @ohanahotellesvos )
Evelyn Torton Beck’s Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology
Audre Lorde’s Siter Outsider
Adrienne Rich’s On Lies, Secrets, and Silence
Pat Parker
Briona Simone Jones‘ Mouths of Rain
Sister Write
AJ ( @goodfoodbyaj )
Judith Butler

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What is your favourite queer beach read?
2.How much do you know about Sappho? Please look her up and read some of her poetry.
3.Leah talks about pinkie rings as queer code and Sappho has created another one through her poetry: violets. Which other queer codes do you know?
4.Leah talks about many moments of queer joy that she has experienced on Lesvos. What is a space of queer joy for you?

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Sweet Christmas, darling gays! (It’s a superhero catchphrase. I looked it up.) Prof andré carrington (UCR) brings us truth, justice and a queerer tomorrow in this Queer Lit quest. With great knowledge comes great responsibility and andré is ready to take it: he takes us on a deep dive into queer black comics, fan studies, queer cartoonists, and introduces me to awesome characters from Aqualad to Jughead, from Black Panther to Storm.

andré truly is the best at what he does, which is why you should follow @prof_carrington on Twitter and his trusty sidekick @benjaminbannekerphdog on Instagram. @queerlitpodcast hangs out there as well.

Texts and people mentioned:

andré carrington’s Speculative Blackness
andré carrington’s “Afrofuturism, Public Enemy, and Fear of a Black Planet at 25”
https://soundstudiesblog.com/2015/11/09/afrofuturism-and-fear-of-a-black-planet-at-25/
Queers and Comics (@queersandcomicsconference)
https://queersandcomics.com/
“Anne Lister Fan Research“ with Sarah Wingrove
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49139141
Milestone Media Comics
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas’ The Dark Fantastic (2019)
Ramzi Fawaz’ Queer Forms (2022) and The New Mutants (2016)
Dwayne McDuffie
Reginald Hudlin
D’Arcee Charington Neal
Alison Bechdel
Jennifer Camper
Ivan Velez Jr.
Justin Hall
Howard Cruse
Phil Jimenez
Magdalene Visaggio’s Vagrant Queen
Black Mask Studios
Kelly Sue DeConnick
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Roxanne Gay
Afua Richardson (@afuarichardson)
ASAP Association for the Study of the Arts of the Presence (UCLA)
https://www.artsofthepresent.org/conferences/
Isaac Julien
Unarchiving Blackness
Jade Sasser
Jody Benjamin
Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi
Ayana Omilade Flewellen
Center for Ideas and Society (UCR)
https://ideasandsociety.ucr.edu/
Marlon James’ Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.How can comics help us understand queerness and race in new ways?
2.andré talks about wish fulfilment as one function of comics. What else can comics and their worlds do? How do they negotiate antiqueerness and antiblackness?
3.What is an acafan?
4.Which roles can (queer) fans play in the study of comics?
5.Which of the characters that andré mentions do you find the most interesting in this context and why?

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One episode more! In this bonus track, Nemo Martin (Royal Holloway) tells me about their research on race, racism, and racist tropes in Hugo’s classic Les Misérables, but also in the fanfiction based on Hugo. Nemo kindly shares some insights on how these depictions of race are entangled with nonnormative genders and asexuality. What Nemo doesn’t mention in the recording is that they’re also a brilliant writer and podcast creator. Queer Asian pirates is all I’m saying…

Find out more about Nemo on Twitter (@zeus_japonicus and @lesmispodcast) and on their website https://www.nemomartin.com/ and follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter for more books and more gay.

People, texts and concepts mentioned:

UntoldTales

https://untoldlgbtqtales.wordpress.com/
Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Fanfiction
andré carrington
Romani
Esmeralda
Owarinaki Tabiji (終わりなき旅路)

Footnote from Nemo: “The “Racism is something whites define as bad action by others” quote is from Stephanie M. Wildman and Adrienne D. Davis, Language and Silence: Making Systems of Privilege Visible, 35 Santa Clara L. Rev. 881 (1995), available at: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview/vol35/iss3/4. The Rromani person who talked about their opinion of Javert as Rrom: https://stfugadje-blog.tumblr.com/post/41556640377/theres-a-grief-that-cant-be-spoken.”

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.Nemo mentions the quote “Racism is something other white people do.”. What do you think that entails?
2.How might fanfiction almost unwittingly engage in racist depictions?
3.Which example does Nemo give for a racist trope in Hugo’s writing?
4.Nemo also briefly speaks about asexuality. How does sexuality intersect with race and gender here?
5.Can you think of a character from literary history that we could read as asexual?

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Imagine a publishing world in which your editor is a Black trans person, your publicist is a queer person with autism, and your graphic designer is a two spirit queero. And guess what: it’s real and it’s called queer publishing. Alex DiFrancesco is a trans author and editor who has worked with several radical and progressive publishing houses over the years and joins me for a chat about their work, their journey, and why they’re living the gay dream.

Don’t be a stranger! Follow @Alex_JKPGender on Twitter and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram.

Works by Alex mentioned:

https://alexdifrancesco.com/
All City (2018)
“Tales from the Institut fuer Sexualwissenschaft”
Transmutation: Stories
Psychopomps

Other texts and people mentioned:

Jessica Kingsley Publishers (@JKPBooks and @JKPGender)
Meg-John Barker (@megjohnbarker)
https://www.spreaker.com/user/14328383/queer-lit-mj
Joy Ellison’s Sylvia and Marsha Start a Revolution!
Sylvia Rivera
Marsha P. Johnson
Heartstopper
Seven Stories Press (@7StoriesPress)
Sundress Publications (@SundressPub)

OwnVoices

Superstorm Sandy
Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow
Felix D’eon (@felixdeonart)
Aphantasia
Tiresias
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
JVN’s Getting Curious (@curiouswithjvn)
Wild Zero (1999)
Guitar Wolf

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What distinguishes queer or radical publishing houses from mainstream publishers?
2.Do you know a radical or progressive press? Please try to find one in an area that is of interest to you.
3.What is own voice publishing?
4.Why does Alex find queer books for young people and children particularly important? What are your thoughts on this?
5.We speak about trans* characters as messengers in the episode. Can you think of a text that presents such a character?
6.If you could open a radical publishing house, what would make it radical?

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Brighton’s first radical queer bookshop finally opened its doors! The Queery is a very special trans and queer cooperative that is a workshop space, a pay-as-you-can vegan café, a community venue, and (this is where it gets really dreamy) a very gay bookshop and library! The selection is on point, with lots of former Queer Lit guests and their reading recommendations in stock, as well as merch by queer and trans creators. When I went for a spontaneous visit on Pride weekend, the lovely Stevie was kind enough to take a few spontaneous minutes out of a busy day to tell me more about The Queery. Come, listen, and go visit this little queer utopia.

For more books, gays, and glamour, follow @thequeerybtn and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter. You can find wonderful Stevie @snowflakesandwonder on Insta.

People, texts, and places mentioned:

https://thequeery.co.uk
hello@thequeery.co.uk
Megan Elliott @claywildstudio
Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood and Parable of the Sower

Questions you might want to think about after listening:

1.If you could create any community space, what would it look like?
2.Have you ever been to a queer bookshop? Which ones do you know?
3.Do your sexuality and gender affect your behaviour as a consumer? In what way?

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Come for the indigenous activism, stay for the queer joy – the delightful Dr Jas M. Morgan (Toronto Metropolitan University) is here for both. In this deep dive into queer indigeneity in literature, art and academia, Jas talks about their brilliant writing, their creative communities, their kick-ass students, and how their trans nonbinary perspective shapes their work. Jas also explains why talking about art and literature without all the excessive lingo is awesome and why we seem to be in the middle of quite the moment for queer indigenous writing. Tune in to hear about some of the female, queer, and trans indigenous artists and activists that are breaking down barriers as we speak.

BTW, all the cool kids are following @notvanishing and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter. @notvanishing is also on TikTok. Queer Lit is not that cool.

Terms, people and texts mentioned:

Cree-Métis-Saulteaux
Wahkohtowin
Cree
Nîtisânak (Metonymy Press, @metonymypress)
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home
Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts
Jenn Shapland’s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
Lisa Tatonetti
Lacan
Turtle Island
Orlando
Brené Brown
Joshua Whitehead
Tommy Pico
Chrystos
Aiyanna Maracle
Egerton Ryerson
Yellowhead Institute
Katherena Vermette’s The Strangers
Showgirls
Sapphic
Dana Danger
https://jasmorgan.com/2017/05/10/canadian-art-making-space-in-indigenous-art-for-bull-dykes-and-gender-weirdos/
Brandi Bird’s I am Still Too Much
@brandibird_
Rahila’s Ghost Press
@rahilasghost

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What is the role of kinship in indigenous literature and storytelling? Can you connect this to queer kinship?
2.Why, does Jas explain, were their queer studies approaches viewed negatively within the field of native studies when they started out in academia?
3.Why was Toronto Metropolitan University recently renamed?
4.What does Jas think about the current interest in queer indigenous lifewriting?
5.What are your thoughts on collaboration and activism in academia?

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In this special bonus episode, Sarah Wingrove (University of Surrey) is back to tell us more about Anne Lister and Gentleman Jack and about all the impressive efforts the fan community is putting into reviving the HBO/BBC TV series Gentleman Jack after a surprising cancellation. F-Annes around the world are demanding to see more of the 19th century gender nonconforming lesbian, whose detailed diaries form the basis for the series and for Sarah’s exciting research. I’m tipping my imaginary hat to the fan community and to this brilliant Anne Lister expert!

Do you need more top hats in your feed? Follow @saz_wingrove on Twitter. For cats, books, and podcasts, follow @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram.

People, Texts and Entities mentioned:

Gentleman Jack
Anne Lister
“Anne Lister Fan Research” with Sarah Wingrove (Queer Lit)
Sally Wainwright (@spiceyw)
Happy Valley
Lookout Point
Anne Walker
Shibden Hall
The L Word
@Goretober13

representationmatters

Wynonna Earp
The 100
Skala Eressos Women’s Festival (@eressos_womens_festival)
Janet Lea’s The Gentleman Jack effect
Bury Your Gays trope
Tara and Willow
Buffy
Pat Esgate (@PatEsgate)
“What's Next for GJ with Sally Wainwright” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvxehbgfm8Q

ALBW Anne Lister Birthday week

Suranne Jones
Helen Hawkins
Save Gentleman Jack - Flash Mob Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqgPK0LMnw
O’Hooley & Tidow
Write A Well-Worded Letter
Casie Bloys (HBO Chief Content Officer)
Kit Heyam’s Before We Were Trans
“Queer Kings and Trans Histories” with Kit Heyam (Queer Lit)
Alexis Duggins. “‘Gentleman Jack has genuinely saved lives’: readers respond to the show’s cancellation” The Guardian, 15 July 2022.
Caroline Gonda
Dyke*March Cologne (@dykemarchcologne)
Dyking Out podcast (@dykingout)
Anne Lister Society
Footnote from Sarah: Anne says she does not identify with “sapphic” when talking to Maria Barlow in Paris, as described in Helena Whitbread’s No Priest But Love and Chris Roulston’s “Sexuality in Translation: Anne Lister and the Ancients”.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.Who is Anne Lister?
2.Why is it important to consider ambiguities and possibilities when we look at queer people and characters in history?
3.What is presentism?
4.Sarah talks about the increasing agency of fan communities. Do you have another example for this?
5.In how far are fans becoming co-creators and authors?

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Ever wondered what the 2S inLGBTQIA2S+* stands for? Then this is the episode for you. Two spirit is an umbrella term that some native people in Canada and the US use to describe something that may look like non-binary gender on the outside but, like a rainbow cake of gender expansiveness, is filled with entirely different contexts and rich histories. In this first part of a double feature on queer Indigenous literatures, we hear from Lisa Tatonetti, a settler scholar who has been working on Two-Spirit writing and activism for many years and shares some of her favourite Two-Spirit reads and writers.

One highlight of the episode: Lisa’s foster cat Pippin! For more cats and books, follow @lisatatonetti on Twitter and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram.

Texts, people, and terms mentioned:

Kaw Nation
Santa Fe Trail
Lisa Tatonetti’s Written by the Body: Gender Expansiveness and Indigenous Non-Cis Masculinities
Carole laFavor’s Along the Journey River and Evil Dead Center
Anishinaabe
Ojibwe
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Mekadebinesikwe Kai Minosh Pyle
https://mekadebinesikwe.com/
Phillip J. Deloria
Herero Genocide
Joshua Whitehead’s Johnny Appleseed
Jas Morgan
Ocean Vuong
Beth Brant’s Writing as Witness
Billy-Ray Belcourt
Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction (ed. Joshua Whitehead) (Tatonetti references an earlier collection, Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time, also excellent, when intending to refer to the Whitehead collection.)
Audre Lorde’s theory of the Erotic
Link to Lorde’s foundational piece: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e7cf4825b02c00b6a142f0c/t/5f4bee98ceb27e4afe99bd7c/1598811800640/audre_lorde_cool-beans.pdf
Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem
Kumeyaay Nation
Jonathan Van Ness
HIV taskforce—the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS created by U.S. president Bill Clinton
Craig Womack’s Drowning in Fire (2001) and Red on Red (2009)
Mvskokee (Creek)
Muscogee (Creek) Nation

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What can Two-Spirit mean and how did the term originate?
2.What is a land acknowledgement? What is potentially problematic about them?
3.What role does masculinity play in the context of Two-Spirit and Indigenous history more broadly? How was masculinity instrumentalised by settler colonialists?
4.What does Lisa mean when she talks about the Erotic? Please look up Audre Lorde’s source text and read at least a few pages.
5.Do you know which people have lived on the land you live on? Why do you (not) know?

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THE Prof Lee Edelman (Tufts) joins me to talk about one of my favourite topics: nothing. Lee’s extremely clever (and incredibly influential) work in queer studies has most recently led him to write an entire book about all the things that nothing can mean and what this has to do with queer life, film, and literature. Lee also talks about his previous work on reproductive futurism and No Future, about awesome queer films, about how knowledge as well as poetry come out of ‘nothing’, and about why queer people aren’t always queer people. Confused yet? Awesome! Let’s go on this queer journey together.

If you too like chatting about queer stuff, nothing, and everything, follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter.

Works by Lee mentioned:

Transmemberment of Song: Hart Crane's Anatomies of Rhetoric and Desire (Stanford, 1987)
Homographesis: Essays in Gay Literary and Cultural Theory (Routledge, 1994)
No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Duke, 2004)
with Lauren Berlant. Sex, or the Unbearable (Duke, 2014)
Edelman, Lee. "Learning nothing: bad education." differences 28.1 (2017): 124-173.
Bad Education: Why Queer Theory Teaches Us Nothing (Duke, Forthcoming December 2022)

Texts, people and concepts mentioned:

Badiou
Augé
Lena Mattheis “Silence, Absence, Non-Lieux.” Translocality in Contemporary City Novels (Palgrave, 2021)
Susan Stryker
Hannah Gadbsy’s Nanette
Catherine Malabou
Luce Irigaray
Julia Kristeva
Afropessimism
Ontology
W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” (1939)
Lacan
Ab-sense
Almodóvar’s La Mala Educación (Bad Education, 2004)
Haneke’s Funny Games (1997)
Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou (1997)
Slavoj Žižek
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Judith Butler
Miscegenation
Non-lieu
Plato’s atopia
Socrates
Reproductive futurism

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.Make a list of all the things “nothing” can mean. How would you explain what Lee means when he talks about “nothing”?
2.What is Lee’s definition of queerness and/or queer literature?
3.Please look up Lee’s No Future and write a brief definition of “reproductive futurism”, a term he also uses in this episode.
4.In the episode, we speak about the Auden quotation “Poetry makes nothing happen”. What does this mean for you? Please also look up and read the whole poem (“In Memory of W.B. Yeats”) for context.
5.How can film, art, and literature help us understand all of this? Please give an example from the podcast or from your own experience.

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“When the earth spoke to me, I was moved to compose a collection of love letters between Black women.” -- This is how Dr Briona Simone Jones (University of Connecticut) describes their work in the introduction to their mind-expanding anthology Mouths of Rain. In this episode, Briona tells me how and why they took on the feat of publishing this book while also finishing a PhD on Black lesbian aesthetics in the middle of a pandemic, and how both their mum and Audre Lorde helped them do it. Briona also addresses the impact the constant violence against queer Black women has on their work and on that of others, while, at the same time, highlighting the importance of the Erotic, of love, and of pleasure.

I fell in love with Mouths of Rain immediately and I think you will too. Listen to the episode, get the book, and follow @brionasimone and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram.

Texts, people and concepts mentioned:

Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought (ed. Briona Simone Jones, 2021)
Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (A Biomythography), Sister Outsider, Collected Poems, “A Litany for Survival”, “Recreation”, “Love Poem”
Bikram Yoga
https://blacklivesmatter.com/
Words of Fire (ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall)
Alice Walker
Norton Anthology of African American Literature
James Baldwin
Kristie Dotson
Yomaira Figueroa
Afrekete (eds. Joyce Delaney and Catherine McKinley)
Does Your Mama Know? (ed. Lisa C Moore)
Black Woman (ed. Toni Cade Bambara)
Black Like Me (ed. John Howard Griffin)
Joseph Beam
Brother to Brother (dir. Rodney Evans)
In the Life
Cheryl Clarke’s After Mecca
But Some of Us Are Brave (eds. Barbara Smith, Patricia Bell Scott and Akasha Gloria T Hull)
“The Black Lesbian Body.” (forthcoming, Cambridge UP)
Pat Parker
Combahee River Collective (1974)
https://americanstudies.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Keyword%20Coalition_Readings.pdf
Barbara Smith
Beverly Smith
Demita Frazier
Margo Okazawa-Rey
Ann Allen Shockley’s Loving Her
Kitchen Table: Women of Colour Press
This Bridge Called my Back (ed. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa)
Anita Cornwell’s Black Lesbian in White America (1983)
Black Arts Movement (1965-1975)
Alexis De Veaux
Frederick Douglass
The Erotic
Kaladaa Crowell
Brandi Mells
Shanta Myers
Kerrice Lewis
Crystal Jackson
Britney Cosby
Sheila Adhiambo Lumumba

SayHerName

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What is the Combahee River Collective?
2.Why does Briona describe ‘Black lesbian’ as a very capacious term? What can ‘Black lesbian’ mean? You may want to refer to Briona’s introduction to Mouths of Rain in your response.
3.What role does naming play in Black lesbian thought?
4.Why does Briona emphasise the importance of the long history of Black lesbian writing?
5.Please pick one of the theorists or writers Briona mentions and learn more about them.
6.How can literature help us fight systemic racism and anti-Black and anti-queer violence?

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“Sometimes a kiss can make you feel free.” This beautiful line by Prof GerShun Avilez (University of Maryland) was one of the many, many reasons I wanted to learn more about his book Black Queer Freedom. In addition to the freeing potential of queer kisses, GerShun talks about how literature can help us better understand the ways in which Black queer bodies are harmed every day. He also explains what memoirs of gender-nonconforming and trans people of colour can teach us about how history is written and how movement through institutions like hospitals or prisons is affected by race and sexuality. Along with brilliant reflections on spaces of injury and spaces of pleasure, GerShun shares examples of artworks and books from his past and present research and generally dazzles me with all his clever insights on Black queer spaces and history. A must listen!

https://www.facebook.com/gershun.avilez

https://english.umd.edu/directory/gershun-avilez

@queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter

Texts, concepts and people mentioned:

GerShun Avilez’ Black Queer Freedom (UP Illinois, 2020)
GerShun Avilez’ Radical Aesthetics & Modern Black Nationalism (UP Illinois, 2016)
Pat Parker
Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Adrian Piper’s Vanilla Nightmares
Afropressimism
Social death
Orlando Patterson
“Africana/Black Studies Colloquium: Book Launch: GerShun Avilez, BLACK QUEER FREEDOM”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZU4ABWpE0Q
“Left of Black with GerShun Avilez”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24XOQWLR264
Queer Geographies Postgraduate Reading Group (Twitter: @QueerGeogPGRG)
Makeda Silvera’s “Baby”
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Jackie Kay
Janet Mock
Saeed Jones’ How We Fight for Our Lives
LaVelle Ridley “Black Trans Narratives”
https://www.spreaker.com/user/14328383/queer-lit-lavelle
Robert Jones Jr’s The Prophets
Homo Sapiens Podcast
Black Lives Matter
https://blacklivesmatter.com/

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.How can literature help us understand more about racism and antiqueer violence?
2.GerShun mentions Adrian Piper working with a newspaper as the basis for her artwork. Can you think of other examples of everyday objects that show how “our cultural imaginary […] is rooted in ideas about race and sexuality in ways that are so ordinary that we don’t even fully see them anymore”?
3.What are spaces of injury and why are they an important category in GerShun’s research?
4.We speak about the “fleeting nature of privacy” in the lives of racial minorities, queer and gender-nonconforming people. Can you think of a book, series or film that reflects on that?
5.In which ways, does GerShun suggest, can studying Black queer memoirs and life writing help us understand the true nature of history – and its omissions?
6.What is the role of pleasure in GerShun’s work, or in your own experience of queer space?

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Hold on to your pussyhats! The incredible Prof Susan Stryker joins me for this whirlwind through trans histories, nows, and futures, in which we talk about the power of narrative and affect in research and media and about what transness might teach us about possible ways of existing in the world. Susan shares entertaining insights from her ground-breaking publications and films, as well as the creative projects she is working on right now. We even get to hear about how she teaches a magnificent work of trans* literature we have discussed in Queer Lit episodes past…

Don’t wait for it! Listen now and follow @susanstryker, @lena_mattheis and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter, and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

Works by Susan mentioned:

https://www.susanstryker.net/
Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution (Seal Press, 2017)
Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria (with Victor Silverman, 2005)
“My Words to Viktor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage” (GLQ, 1994)
Changing Gender: Memoir, History, Manifesto (working title)

Texts, people and quotations mentioned:

Janet Mock
“The Woman-Identified Woman” Manifesto
“The Lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion.”
Patricia Elliot
Lacan
Žižek
Teresa de Lauretis
Hyperobject
Anthropocene
Anna Tsing et al. (eds): Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet
Foucault
Christine Jorgensen
“Christine in the Cutting Room”
60 Minutes
Mike Wallace
Ornette Coleman
Wendy Carlos’ Switched-on Bach
Tape music
Shirley Clarke’s Ornette: Made in America (1985)
Free jazz
Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox (2018)
Jack Sheppard
Mack The Knife
Three Penny Opera
Nabokov’s Pale Fire
Junot Diaz
Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke
Freud
Deleuze and Guattari
Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History and The Arcades Project
Berthold Brecht
Foucault’s Herculine Barbin
Jakob von Uexküll

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.How do affect and theory interact in Susan’s work?
2.How can trans allow us to think about other systems (such as the state or the environment) in new, more open ways?
3.Are you familiar with any trans figures from literature or history?
4.Which people from trans* history does Susan mention? Please pick one and find out more about them.
5.What is the special formal element Susan highlights in speaking about Confessions of the Fox? Can you connect this to her other thoughts on (media or literary) form and transness? How can the cinematic art of film cutting parallel transitions?

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In this special treat of a minisode, you will get to meet one of the amazing architects of Lesbian Lives: Prof Katherine O’Donnell (University College Dublin), who is herself an activist, artist and academic. Katherine tells me about her research, the rich queer history of Cork, about colonialism and queerness in Ireland, and she reveals Fiona Shaw’s real name…

If you’re as intrigued by Katherine’s many interests and talents as I am, go and follow @Ka_ODonnel on Twitter and also click on @Lena_Mattheis while you’re there. Prefer Instagram? NO problem, we got you: @queerlitpodcast.

Texts and people mentioned:

Slant (New Island Press)

Edmund Burke

LINC

@linc_Ireland (Instagram) @LINCwomen (Twitter)

Fiona Shaw

Graham Norton

Irish Queer Archive

@irishqueerarchive (Instagram and Facebook)

Tonie Walsh

Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts

Questions I am reflecting on after listening:

1. How do activism and research intersect? Can they even be seperated?

2. What makes the queer research community distinct?

3. How can I steal that painting of Fiona Shaw?

4. Which local queer archives can I explore in the future – physical or digital?

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Do you know what it feels like for a butch? Join Dr Melissa Hidalgo (California State University) and me for a brief interlude between Lesbian Lives panels to find out. Melissa is interested in barbershops, pubs, sports venues and other typically male connoted spaces. She explores how inclusive they are for female, butch, and brown bodies and shares some of her own experiences of California vs Ireland. Hot tip: If you need better language to tell your barber how you want your hair cut, listen now.

Lad it up! Follow @DrBeerButch and @Lena_Mattheis on Twitter, and @lifes_a_butcha and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram, for more queer content and gay haircuts.

Texts and people mentioned:

James Joyce’s Ulysses

Davy Byrnes

Bloomsday

Melissa Hidalgo’s “What it feels like for a butch” Gay Mag (2019)

https://gay.medium.com/what-it-feels-like-for-a-butch-3ba9ded6f126

Roxanne Gay

Alfred Arteaga’s House of the Blue Bed

Melissa Hidalgo’s Mozlandia: Morrissey Fans in the Borderlands (Headpress UK, 2016)

San Patricio or Saint Patrick’s Batallion

La Virgen de Guadalupe

St Brigid of Kildare

Chris Abani’s Virgin of Flames

Cherrie Moraga’s Native Country of the Heart

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Dungarees, monocles, vegan boots and carabiners: lesbian fashion historian Ellie Medhurst (Brighton University) is intimately familiar with all of these staples of sartorial Sapphism. In this minisode, Ellie, aka @dressigndykes, will teach you how you too can look like cool lesbian. Ellie mixes tasty tidbits from queer Japanese fashion history with DIY political t-shirts in an audio(visual) melange of goodness and if you are not following @dressingdykes on Instagram and @elliemedhurst on Twitter and Tiktok, what are you doing with your lesbian life?

Texts and people mentioned:

www.dressingdykes.com

Édouard Bourdet’s The Captive (La Prisonnière, 1926)

Seitō

https://dressingdykes.com/2021/07/09/feminism-and-the-fashioned-lesbian-in-1910s-japan/

Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What are some ‘secret codes’ of lesbian fashion?

2. What can we learn about lesbian life by studying fashion and the history of fashion?

3. Ellie talks about gendered fashion in 1910s Japan. Which gendered twist does she highlight here?

4. How might queer fashion be relevant to queer culture beyond a desire to recognise each other?

5. Do you have a favourite queer fashion item?

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Did you know most people start to transition before they decide to transition? Louka Maju Goetzke (Frankfurt Uni) shares research on transition practices, as well as all kinds of fascinating findings on transitioning, forming the desire to transition, and other activities surrounding gender. Louka interrogates the making and crossing of boundaries which produce gender transitions and the distinction which is drawn between gender transitions and other practices of gender. We also briefly touch on cis people’s gender affirming practices, only to arrive at the thought indeed, everyone might be trans.

Come and smash the cis/trans binary with @LoukaGo on Twitter and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram!

Text mentioned

Leslie Feinberg’s Stonebutch Blues

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is a transition?

2. Louka mentions the relation between desiring to become something and knowing that you are something. How does this relation play out?

3. What gender affirming practices have you encountered in literature? Are they always performed by trans* people?

4. A transition can take many shapes and forms. I invite you to reflect on your own gender journey and be kind to people who are finding their way through theirs.

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Warning! This episode will haunt you. Naoise Murphy (Cambridge University) tells me all about novels inhabited by spectral spinsters and Sapphic spirits and explains what these ghostly queers have to say about the carceral system and the colonial project. I am obsessed with (or possessed by?) Naoise’s brilliance and would recommend a listen, especially if you’re into Irish women writers.

There’s something strange in the neighbourhood. Who you gonna follow? @naoisemurphy and @Lena_Mattheis on Twitter and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram! (Doesn’t roll of the tongue though...)

Texts and people mentioned:

Elizabeth Bowen

Kate O’Brien

Dorothy Macardle’s The Uninvited (1942, originally titled Uneasy Freehold)

Molly Keane’s Good Behaviour (1981)

Soláthar díreach: Direct Provision

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. How do ghosts relate to queerness? Can you think of a queer ghost figure from literature or popular culture?

2. How does race and racism figure into Naoise’s research?

3. Naoise talks about marginalised people being turned into ghosts. In which ways are queer people turned into spectres and what does this do to a group of people?

4. Please look up at least one of the authors or texts Naoise mentions and find out a surprising (shocking? haunting?) fact about them.

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Did you know that a lot of the research on Anne Lister’s famously queer diaries was in fact done by fan researchers? Sarah Wingrove (Surrey University) explains why the fan community’s specialist knowledge and meticulous fact-checking should not be underestimated and how she herself got into Anne Lister aka Gentleman Jack. My favourite part: a new euphemism for masturbation, fresh from Miss Lister’s not so secret diaries…

Tiny mistake there in the terminology though: post-editing, Sarah informed me that Lister actually ‘incurred’ rather than ‘marked’ the cross, and that she died at 49. Thanks for the fact check, Sarah!

Want to stay on top of Gentleman Jack? Follow @saz_wingrove on Twitter to learn more. At least two puns intended. Also, @queerlitpodcast has an Instagram. Just sayin’.

Texts and resources mentioned:

Gentleman Jack

Anne Lister Birthday Week

https://www.annelisterbirthdayweek.com/

@ALBW2021 (Twitter) @annelister_bw (Instagram)

Anne Choma’s Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister

Eliza Raine

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, edited by Helena Whitbread

West Yorkshire Archive Service

https://wyascatablogue.wordpress.com/exhibitions/anne-lister/anne-lister-diary-transcription-project/

@wyorksarchives (Twitter) @westyorkshirearchive (Instagram)

Jill Liddington’s Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax, 1791-1840

Packed with Potential

https://www.packedwithpotential.org/home

@PackedWith (Twitter) @packedwithpotential (Instagram)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is the role of fandom in Anne Lister research?

2. How is traditional academic research similar to and different from fan research?

3. Have you ever turned yourself into an expert on something you’re a fan of?

4. Where can you access the diaries of Anne Lister?

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Have you ever thought to yourself: how come radical feminism sounds so good but often tastes so bad? Dr Finn Mackay (UWE Bristol) is here to explain why that is. Come along to our Lesbian Lives chat to learn about female masculinities, tomboys and trans* mascs, and to hear about why Finn wanted to write a book that answers all the introductory questions people who are not queer academics might have about gender and transness.

Just can’t get enough of Finn? I can’t either, which is I follow @Finn_Mackay on Twitter and @drfinnmackay on Instagram.

Texts and people mentioned:

https://www.drfinnmackay.co.uk/

Finn Mackay’s Female Masculinities and the Gender Wars (Bloomsbury, 2022) and Radical Feminism: Feminist Activism in Movement (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)

Jack Halberstam

Westminster’s Transgender Equality Inquiry (Reform of Gender Recognition Act)

bel hooks’ The Will to Change

Questions you might want to reflect on after listening:

1. What are some of the masculine* identity categories that Finn mentions? Can you think of others?

2. Why might some people perceive the option of transitioning as potentially erasing other identity categories?

3. Do you have a good example (maybe even from literature) to explain why that is not the case?

4. Have you ever wished you were able to better communicate with people who have less of an understanding of queerness?

5. Do you have any strategies? Please do share!

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Live like a lesbian: in solidarity. This little episode gives you a brief and desperately incomplete introduction to the happening that was the 25th Lesbian Lives conference. Under the magnificent motto “Solidarity!” so many wonderful talks, workshops, walks and connections took place, I could not even begin to claim an exhaustive summary. I do, however, have recordings from a keynote by the extremely funny and deeply clever Val McDermid and I get to share with you the visceral energy of wordsmith FELISPEAKS. You will also find out about the line-up of queer scholars whose brief interviews I will share with you over the next few weeks.

You absolutely must follow @felispeaks on Instagram and @valmcdermic on Twitter and if you have an extra like, why not share it with @queerlitpodcast and @Lena_Mattheis.

Most texts, places and people mentioned:

Val McDermid

https://www.valmcdermid.com/

Felicia Olusanya FELISPEAKS

https://www.felispeaks.com/

“The Thing” by FELISPEAKS

Philip Sidney

Edmund Spenser

Plato

Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics

The Portobello Bookshop

@PortyBooks (Twitter and Instagram)

bell hooks

Olu Jenzen

Susan Stryker

Tzeli Hadjidimitriou

Skala Eressos

LINC

@LINC_Ireland (Instagram) @LINCwomen (Twitter)

Crawford Art Gallery

Cork LGBT Archive

@corklgbtarchive (Instagram) @CorkLGBTHistory (Twitter)

Orla Egan

@orlaegan1 (Twitter)

Questions I will be reflecting on:

1. What is solidarity? Where can we see it in literature?

2. How can I lead a more solidarity-oriented life?

3. What does ‘lesbian’ mean these days? Which parts of the label do I subscribe to?

4. Where is the line between scholarship and activism? Is there one?

5. How was this the 25th Lesbian Lives conference and it took me 31 years of living to go to my first one?

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Call. Me. Mother. But what on earth does that word even mean? Dr Tyler Bradway (SUNY Cortland) takes us down the magnificent and multifaceted rabbit holes of queer kinship to chat about trans* motherhood, kinlessness, polyamory, race and kinship, queer kids, and the deep traumas and shiny possibilities attached to all of these. We discuss whether we really ‘choose’ our chosen families, how institutions intervene in our various relationships, and why the throuple makes for many more narrative possibilities than your average rom-com has to offer. From Netflix algorithms to pregnant butches, we pretty much cover it all.

Join the queer research fam today by following @Tyler_Bradway and @Lena_Mattheis on Twitter and, while you’re at it, why not check out @queerlitpodcast on Instagram as well.

https://www.tylerbradway.com/

Texts and people mentioned:

Bradway, Tyler, and Ellen Lee McCallum, eds. After Queer Studies. Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Bradway, Tyler. Queer Experimental Literature: The Affective Politics of Bad Reading. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Bradway, Tyler. "Queer Narrative Theory and the Relationality of Form." PMLA 136.5 (2021): 711-727.
Bradway, Tyler, and Elizabeth Freeman. Queer Kinship: Race, Sex, Belonging and Form. Forthcoming.
Weston, Kath. Families We Chose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship. Columbia University Press, 1997.
Renee Gladman
POSE
Paris is Burning
Marlon Bailey
Stockton, Kathryn Bond. The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century. Duke University Press, 2009.
Lee Edelman
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Are you my Mother?
Jules Gill-Peterson
Kate Davies’ In At the Deep End
Freeman, Elizabeth. "Queer belongings: Kinship theory and queer theory." A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies (2007): 293-314.
Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet’s Dialogues
Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts
Harry Dodge’s My Meteorite
Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby
A.K. Summers’ Pregnant Butch
My Mama Wears Timbs: A Short Documentary on Motherhood & Masculinity by Ari Fitz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRgTLb5EbiQ&t=51s

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What is queer kinship? Do you have concrete examples from life or literature?
2.Which critiques of the term ‘chosen family’ does Tyler present? Do you think relationships can be thought of as marketplaces?
3.How can kinship be used in violent and stigmatizing ways? Which examples of racialised kinship does Tyler give?
4.What does the term ‘kinless’ mean?
5.Please write a brief definition of either the term ‘nuptials’ or ‘throuple’ that mentions one primary text (as an example) as well as one secondary text.

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A PhD on Grindr? Yes, please! Dr Carl Bonner-Thompson (Brighton University) did just that and is an expert, not just on queer data, but also on queer geographies shaped by data and dating apps. Follow us into the gay matrix to learn about the everyday interactions of queer people with data, how data affects physical touch, in which ways tracking apps may reshape cruising spaces, and why Carl and I are into the same random dating dystopia TV series.

For more queer data awareness on your feed, follow @cbonnerthompson and @lena_mattheis on Twitter and if you want to go all out with your digital connections, find @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

Texts and concepts mentioned:

Bonner-Thompson, Carl and Linda McDowell. “Digital geographies of austerity: Young men’s material, affective and everyday relationships with the digital.” Geoforum 120 (2021): 113-121.
Bonner‐Thompson, Carl. "Anticipating touch: Haptic geographies of Grindr encounters in Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne, UK." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 46.2 (2021): 449-463.
Grindr Data leak: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/12/15/grindr-fine/
Johnston, Lynda. "Sites of excess: The spatial politics of touch for drag queens in Aotearoa New Zealand." Emotion, Space and Society 5.1 (2012): 1-9.
Corporeal Feminist Theory
New Materialism
Feminist Materialism
Critical Data Studies
Tales of the City
Handmaid’s Tale
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
The Social Network (Indeed, the Mark Zuckerberg film)
The Social Dilemma (Possibly the docudrama Carl mentions)
Facebook and the Rohingya Genocide: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence
The One
Brandon Taylor’s Real Life (2020)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.In which ways might queer people have to be more conscious about their everyday data use? Which examples does Carl give? Can you think of others?
2.What are haptic geographies?
3.Why are intersections of class, gender and sexuality relevant to queer data?
4.We talk about the representation of queer people’s interaction with data and identify two popular tropes. Which ones are these? Can you think of other ones?
5.How careful are you with your data?

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How do you decolonise your syllabus and create a queer book fest at the same time? Dr Vedrana Velickovic (Brighton) shares the amazing origin story of the queer literature festival ‘The Coast is Queer’ and tells us about the many authors, activists, students and creatives that shape the programme every year. We talk about our favourite activist bookshops, about exciting queer books from Eastern Europe and about the perception of the East in the West. Vedrana also talks about her ongoing cooperation with Bernardine Evaristo and gives us a sneak peek into her dream festival programme. Jackie Kay? Are you listening?

If you’re looking for even more queer literary content, look no further: follow @coastisqueer and @Lena_Mattheis on Twitter and check out@queerlitpodcast’s little Instagram.

Texts, shops and people mentioned:

https://coastisqueer.com
Vedrana Velickovic’s Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture: Imagining New Europe (Palgrave, 2019)
Grand Parade Building
Afrori Books (Brighton)
The Feminist Bookshop (Brighton)
New Beacon Books (London)
Jay Bernard’s Surge
Danez Smith
Diriye Osman’s Fairytales for Lost Children
Polari Prize
Jackie Kay’s Trumpet
The Marlborough Theatre (Brighton)
Dr Samuel Solomon (Sussex)
Centre for Sexual Dissidence (Sussex University)
New Writing South @newwritingsouth
Lesley Wood
David Sheppeard
Juno Roche’s Trans Power and Queer Sex
Juno Dawson
Dr Sita Balani (Kings College)
Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain
Festival Krokodil (Belgrade)
Lejla Kalamujić’s Call me Esteban
Dragoslava Barzut
Slovenian Poet Anja Golob
Skin from Skunk Anansie
Gay’s the Word
Maria Jastrzębska
Documentary on trans* rights in Germany https://www.abheute-doku.com/doku?fbclid=IwAR2fE740-9HLF66SbbhaaJZ6MD-rG9uHP16BFpzjJssuaYDxoWjrI4-V87w
H Howitt (Brighton)
Crossing Waves Podcast
DeCol Collective https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/decolonisingatfalmer/
Mohsin Zaidi’s A Dutiful Boy
Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto
Black and Asian British Women’s Writing International Conference https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/decolonisingatfalmer/common-threads-black-and-asian-british-womens-writing-international-conference/
Pajtim Statovci’s My Cat Yugoslavia, Crossing, and Bolla
Paul Mendez Rainbow Milk

Questions you may want to reflect on after listening:

1.What role can literature and teaching play in creating a more inclusive society?
2.We talk about several radical or activist bookshops. Please look up another one. Is it in your area? Was it easy to find? Do you think we need these shops?
3.Which literature festivals are you familiar with? Will you attend or support one this year?
4.How do you decolonise your bookshelf?

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Can you identify a bear with a fur-tive glance? Will a bearitone voice coax you out of hibernation? Join the cub! In this real-life (!) conversation, Dr Nick McGlynn (Brighton University) tells me all about bears -- generally speaking, a larger, hairier variety of queer men, who you may have seen flying the paw flag at your local pride event. Human geographer by trade, Nick has collected lots of ursome data on bear spaces in the UK and found that what makes them so unique are the geographies of fat bodies. We talk about fat, racialised and stigmatised queer bodies and -- I love this part -- how spaces are created that make bears feel warm and welcome.

If you’d like to learn more about bears and bear bodies, follow @nikku_man on Twitter and if you’re beary interested in the podcast, follow @Lena_Mattheis and check out the @queerlitpodcast Instagram account.

Places, people and concepts mentioned:

McGlynn, Nick. "Bears in space: Geographies of a global community of big and hairy gay/bi/queer men." Geography Compass 15.2 (2021)
Bearspace Findings Report and Community Report: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/ctsg/2022/02/02/bearspace-report/
Ibaraki prefecture
Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble
“The Butch” with Amy Tooth-Murphy
Rachel Colls (Durham)
Bodily topographies
Murray Bartlett
Critical Whiteness
Queer as Folk
Canal Street (Manchester)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What, generally speaking, is a bear?
2.Why would Nick not describe ‘bear’ as an identity?
3.Why is critical whiteness so important in queer studies and in fat studies?
4.What are bodily topographies?
5.Nick mentions Queer as Folk and the impact the show had on Canal Street in Manchester. Can you think of a series, film or novel that has transformed a geographical location or space?

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We love a good ‘both and’: both cake and ice cream, both dogs and cats -- Meg-John Barker, who is both extremely clever and very warm and kind! Meg-John is an activist, writer, scholar, therapist, and expert on everything beyond the binary. In this episode, as well as in their multiple graphic guides, MJ explains how rigid binaries harm our bodies, limit our minds and how many benefits life beyond the binary has to offer, not just for genderqueer people but for everyone.

Do you need more mental health input and genderqueer content? Let’s face it; we all do, and here is where you can get some: @megjohnbarker and @Lena_Mattheis on Twitter, @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

Books and other awesome stuff by Meg-John Barker:

https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/
Life Isn’t Binary (with Alex Iantaffi)
Gender: A Graphic Guide (with Jules Scheele)
Queer: A Graphic History (with Jules Scheele)
Mad: A Graphic Guide
The Meg-John & Justin Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/MegJohnBarker

People, places and texts mentioned:

Lynda Barry
Justin Hancock
Jack Halberstam
Open Barbers (London)
99% Invisible: On Average
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/
Beth Berila’s Contemplative Practices for Ant-Oppression Pedagogy
bell hooks
Torrey Peters
Juno Roche
Crossing Waves Podcast
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home
Ellen Forney’s Marbels
Nicole Georges‘ Calling Dr. Laura
Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir
Becky Chambers

Questions you might want to reflect on after listening:

1.What does ‘non-binary’ mean?
2.How does binary thinking affect our everyday lives? Can you think of one example from the podcast and one from your own experience?
3.How does the (constructed) emotional/rational binary affect learning, teaching and mental health?
4.What are your thoughts about the sex/gender divide?
5.Which book do you read when you need to feel warm and positive?

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How can we queer up the countryside? No need, says Joe Jukes (Brighton University), it’s already gay as folk! In this arcadian episode, Joe teaches me all about the dynamic nature of the countryside, about rural erotics and counter urbanization, and about how all of this relates to asexuality and non-sexualities in their research. If you want to learn about queers in the wild (and if you want to hear what my village-dwelling nan thinks about my urbanite sexual identity), this idyllic little podcast is for you!

Do you need more country in your feed? Follow @jsdjukes on Twitter and add @lena_mattheis for the extra dose of concrete and skyscrapers. Also, why not follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram? You only live once!

Texts and terms mentioned:

Jukes, J. and Roe, E.R. 2022. Queer Constellations: Reflections on Curatorial and Creative Practice at the Museum of English Rural Life. Forthcoming.
Queer Geographies Postgraduate Reading Group (Twitter @QueerGeogPGRG)
Outside/rs Conference (Twitter @Outsiders2022)
https://outsiders2022.wordpress.com/
Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other
Lynda Johnston and Robyn Longhurst’s Space, Place, and Sex: Geographies of Sexualities
Rural erotics
Counterurbanisation
Bend it Like Beckham by Gurinder Chada
Gender trouble
Asexualities
Demisexual
Greysexual
Non-sexualities
Spinster
José Muñoz
Cruising
She Bar
Pastoral
Brokeback Mountain
God’s Own Country by Francis Lee
Kemptown in Brighton
Soho in London
Gay’s The Word
The Oval Office Bar (Theater Bochum)
Skala Eressos
Love to see it Podcast
Queer Constellations (Museum of English Rural Life)
Lauren Berlant
“Immaterial” by SOPHIE

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1.What constitutes a queer space?
2.We talk quite a bit about the narrative of queer people leaving a harmful rural space to thrive in the diversity of the urban space. Can you think of an example (or a counter-example) of this? How does this narrative relate to the traditional bildungsroman binary of the sheltering countryside and the corrupt city?
3.What are the three main factors of rural erotics that Joe mentions?
4.We talk about the ‘gaze’ in relation to queer identity. What potential does the gaze have in rural versus urban spaces? If you’re not familiar with the concept of the (white male) gaze, E. Ann Kaplan can help.
5.What is your favourite queer space, real or imaginary?

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Just in time for queer history month, the Queer Lit podcast and the CTSG, the Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender (Brighton University), have a special collaboration in store: Every Tuesday, you will get to meet a remarkable member of the CTSG and learn about their research and reading interests right here on the Queer Lit podcast. Our conversations cover topics ranging from the queer countryside and asexualities to bear bodies and nonbinary activism. All recordings were made during my international research fellowship at the University of Brighton, with help and support from a number of great Brightoninans, first and foremost Olu Jenzen and Karen Gainsford. Thank you, Olu and Karen! You're awesome!

First episode on 1 February!

@CTSG_Brighton (Twitter)
https://www.brighton.ac.uk/ctsg/index.aspx
https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/ctsg/

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Do you know the secret butch nod? In this delightful episode, Dr. Amy Tooth Murphy (Royal Holloway) teaches me about the nod, the queer double take, and all the other sources of queer joy butch lesbians encounter when they brave the streets. Amy lets us enter this magical dyke world via the medium of oral history and explains why queer interactions often remain invisible to straight folk, why it is important to study the butch outside of their natural habitat (the lesbian bar) and why a female flâneur can potentially revamp a problematic masc perspective.

People, works and concepts mentioned:
https://notchesblog.com/
Murphy, Amy Tooth. "Butch on the streets: The butch flâneur and the queering of the city." Contentious Cities. Routledge, 2020. 149-159.
Sally Munt
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D. Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. Routledge, 1993.
Zap
Cook, Matt. Queer Domesticities: Homosexuality and Home Life in Twentieth-Century London. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Flâneur*se
Charles Baudelaire
Walter Benjamin
Palimpsestuous
Bound (1996) by the Wachowski sisters

I butched it up for this one. Did you notice? Tell me on Twitter (@Lena_Mattheis) or on Instagram (@queerlitpodcast) and follow @AmyToothMurphy as well!

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is a butch? How does butchness intersect with fashion, gender and sexual identity?
2. Why do some people criticize butch/femme dynamics and relationships?
3. Please look up historic examples of the ‘zaps’ Amy mentions.
4. What is a flâneur*se? Why is it a problematic concept? How can butch change that?
5. What is oral history? How does Amy conduct research?
6. Amy mentions several literary studies strategies and concepts that are useful in oral history. Which strategies are those?
7. Which queer film scene do you rewind?

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Get ready for the ultimutt dream team: Dr Sarah Parker (Loughborough) and Dr Hannah Roche (York) share their clever mewsings on queer pets and their keepurrs in this pawesome episode. Although a cat called Winky, a poodle named Basket and Whym Chow, the chow, are clearly the alphas of this episode, other Modernist animals and their human companions feature as well: from Gertrude Stein to Radclyffe Hall to 'Michael Field', we’ve got the whole pack! We retrieve their literary hisstories to reflect on how ruff the discrepancy between different timelines of human and non-human animal lives can be, but Hannah and Sarah also read furrmidable love poetry for pets, and talk about the pupstar status most of these animals had in their humans’ lives. At the tail end of the conversation, we all share some furvourite texts and films. Apparently, I need to watch She-Ra!

Texts, people and pets mentioned:
Sarah Parker’s The Lesbian Muse and Poetic Identity, 1889-1930 (Pickering and Chatto, 2013)
Michael Field: Decadent Moderns, edited by Sarah Parker and Ana Parejo Vadillo (Ohio University Press, December 2019)
Sarah Parker’s “Women Poets and Photography, 1860–1970” (National Portrait Gallery)
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/about/photographs-collection/featured-collections-archive/women-poets-and-photography/
Hannah Roche’s The Outside Thing: Modernist Lesbian Romance (Columbia UP, 2019)
Gertrude Stein
Radclyffe Hall
Djuna Barnes
Alice B. Toklas
Basket
Man Ray
Basket
Marie Laurencin
Una Troubridge
Fido
Fitz John Minniehaha
Hedgehog Warwick
Donkey Hilary
Parrot Cocky
Winky
Amy Lowell’s “Chopin”
Romaine Brooks
Thelma Wood
Cat Dilly
H.D.
Bryher
Ekphrasis
Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood
Kathryn Bond Stockton’s The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century (Duke University Press, 2009, 92-93)
Joyce’s Ulysses
T.S. Eliot
Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper’s Works and Days
Whym Chow
Jack Halberstam’s Wild Things
Homo Sapiens 141: Dan Savage Part 2
Stein’s Paris France
Picasso
Michael Field’s “Trinity” Whym Chow, Flame of Love (written 1906, published 1914)
Amy Lowell’s “To Winky”
Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
Sarah E. Kersh, “‘Betwixt Us Two’: Whym Chow, Metonymy, and the Amatory Sonnet Tradition.” Michael Fields: Decadent Moderns, 2019.
Caroline Baylis Green, “Sentimental Coatings and the Subversive Pet Closet: Michael Field's Whym Chow: Flame of Love” (2018 blog post)
https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/sentimental-coatings-and-the-subversive-pet-closet-michael-fields-whym-chow-flame-of-love
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix)
Alison Bechdel’s The Secret to Superhuman Strength

I’m not kitten: You absolutely must follow Hannah (@he_roche) and Sarah (@DrSarahParker) on Twitter. If you’d like to see (p)oodles of queer pets, you could also check out @Lena_Mattheis (Twitter) or @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Which of the authors mentioned are you already familiar with? Do you remember non-human animals featuring in their writing and life?
2. Why do you think writing about pets is often classified as ‘whimsical’ or in some way less relevant?
3. Please read the final scene of Djuna Barnes’ novel Nightwood (1928). What function do you think the dog has here?
4. What are potential roles that can be ascribed to pets in a queer household? What is problematic about these?
5. Please look up Jack Halberstam’s work on wildness and compare his position to Donna Harraway’s Companion Species Manifesto. You may want to refer to the Queer Lit episode with Jack as well.
6. Do you think queer people have a different relationship to pets? (You may want to consider queer temporality, empathy, and queer childhoods in your response.)

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This fine boxing day, I’m introducing you to my queer family: My partner Christian graciously agreed to crunch some candy cane with me for part II of the Holigay Special – and of course the reincats make an appearance as well. Together, we listen to messages from @ibiprofane of Drag & Panto episode fame, from listener @willowcabins, who shares her queer Carol-ling tradition, and from author @c.gemsa_author, who brings us a lesbian reading of The Grinch. We also talk about what our favourite queer spaces are up to for the holidays and we even have a mulled wine chat with our beautiful friend (and very clever author) Helen. This tinselating episode should not be missed!
(This being said, if you’re here for the scholarly content, maybe come back in January.)

People, places and texts mentioned (and their Insta handles):
Kit Heyam
Hannah Roche
Chris Mounsey
Kathrin Horn
Happiest Season
Single All the Way
White Lotus
Carol
Carol of the Bells
John Williams
Charlie Brown’s Christmas
Heavenue
Christian Gemsa‘s Das Flüstern der Kristalle
Nadja (@maladja_tattoo_art)
The Grinch
Nick Cherryman
Above the Stag Theatre & Bar (@abovethestag)
“When Harry Met Santa” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDLumk_rQQw
Royal Vauxhall Tavern (@rvtoffivial)
Duckie (@duckievauxhall)
Butch, Please (@butchpleaselondon)
Pink Glove (@pinkglovedisco)
Oval Office Bar (@ovalofficebar)
Kafe Kweer (@kafekweer)
Skala Eressos on Lesvos (@eressos_womens_festival)
Great Langdale Valley
Lake District
Benjamin Britten
Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
Jackie Kay
Carol Ann Duffy’s Frost Fair

Want to start the New Year right? Follow me on Instagram (@queerlitpodcast) or on Twitter (@Lena_Mattheis) or find Queer Lit Podcast on Facebook. It’s what Rudolph would do.

Questions you might want to reflect on:

1. Can there be a positive relationship between advertising and activism?
2. Which criteria does 'representation' have to fulfil for you?
3. Do you have a queer elder in your life? Can you learn something new from them in 2022?
4. If you are not feeling good or supported this holiday season, there are resources you can reach out too. You are important and you deserve help. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you need help finding groups like Switchboard, an LGBTQIA+ helpline in the UK.

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Light the candles, grab the tinsel! Our very first festive special has arrived! In this extravagant episode, I listen to all the fabulours voice notes you have sent in about queer Christmas and reflect on how great it is to be hohohomosexual (or pansexual, or ace or inter or queer in any way -- I'm just doing it for the puns). You will hear familiar voices from past episodes but also meet a lovely listener and a very merry scholar who will be on Queer Lit in 2022. Of course, this episode also includes reading recommendations and a list of (questionable) holigay films.

Queer Lit episodes mentioned:
“Drag, Panto & Genderfuckery” with Nick Cherryman
“Queer Kings and Trans Histories” with Kit Heyam
“Tarot, Femmes and Asian Diasporic Literature” with Xine Yao
“Queer Pets” with Sarah Parker and Hannah Roche (coming in January!)
“Disability and Queerness” with Chris Mounsey
“Black Trans Narratives” with LaVelle Ridley

Other people, films and podcasts mentioned:
Homosapiens Podcast
Chris Sweeney
Kathrin Horn
https://knowledge-failure.org/knowledge-blog/thoughts-on-the-closets-failed-knowledge/
Rose Tremain’s Sacred Country
“Hail Smiling Morn”
Happiest Season
Clea DuVall
But I’m a Cheerleader
The Children’s Hour
Shirley MacLaine
The Retro Bar
Dan Levy
Jana Funke
Radclyffe Halll’s The Well of Loneliness
Jeanette Winterson’s Christmas Days
The Christmas House
Let It Snow
The Christmas Set-up
Carol
Tangerine
Friendsgiving/Dinner with Friends
New York Christmas Wedding
Lez Bomb
Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory”

Make my yuletide gayer by following me on Twitter (@lena_mattheis) or Instagram (@queerlitpodcast).

Questions you may want to reflect on this festive season:
1.What do you appreciate most about your queer family?
2.What would be a good gender-affirming gift?
3.Which queer charity could you donate to this season? Donations also make great gifts!
4.Kathrin references Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet to speak about queer temporality and the holigays. Why not read up on Sedgwick and the closet this season?

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Join Nick Cherryman (University of Warwick) and me for a giggle and a bit of jolly gender jamming in this episode about drag, performance and pantomime. Nick (aka Ibi Profane) gives us some highlights of drag history, explains what posthuman drag might be and why even that is still gendered. Non-British listeners (and holiday enthusiasts) also get a brief intro to panto dames, why they can be so much fun, but also why they can potentially reinforce problematic assumptions about trans* people. With sparkling examples from Björk to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and a heartwarming story about a young queer woman, a drag queen and a burger, this episode will be the treat you need.

Texts, people and shows mentioned:

queer/disrupt
https://www.queerdisrupt.com/
“Ibi Profane's Dragged Through History”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PwjcKemYHk
Donna Harraway’s Cyborg Manifesto
JerBer Jones
Dragula
Hungry (@ishehungry)
Björk: Utopia, “Virus”, “Mutual Core”, Vulnicura, Biophilia
Andrew Thomas Huang
Stonewall
Marsha P. Johnson
Sylvia Rivera
STAR: Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries
GLF: Gay Liberation Front
Mark Ravenhill’s Mother Clapp’s Molly House
RuPaul
Cheddar Gorgeous
Juno Birch
Ginny Lemon
Alaska Thunderfuck
Bob the Drag Queen’s “Suspiciously Large Woman”
The Queens of Perpetual Indulgence
Conchita Wurst
Jack Halberstam
Heather Love
JVN’s Getting Curious
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home
Catherine Castro’s Appelez-moi Nathan
Jul Maroh’s Blue is the Warmest Colour

It’s behind you! So you better start your engines and follow @ibiprofane, @NCherryman, @queerdisrupt, @queerlitpodcast and @Lena_Mattheis on Instagram or Twittter. Aaaaahhh!

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. Nick and I briefly reference Donna Harraway’s Cyborg Manifesto and the term ‘posthuman’. Please find a definition and an example (this can be artwork, drag, literature, theory, popular culture or whatever you like) for the ‘posthuman’ and look up what the Cyborg Manifesto is all about.
2. Please create a little glossary of terms that relate to drag or being trans and write a very short definition (can be in key words) for each one. Example: “‘Transvestite’ is a term was historically used to describe people who wore clothing of a gender not assigned to them at birth. The term often conflates crossdressers, transgender people and people performing in drag.”
3. Can you think of an example of genderfuckery in a literary text?
4. What is a Molly House? Which specific one does Nick mention and where were they located?
5. What is problematic about pantomimes? What does Nick say about the differences between performance spaces and public spaces in this context?

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Warm up your tarot deck and trim your undercut: Dr Xine Yao (UCL) is here to tell you all about femme invisibility, politics of unfeeling, queerness and race, occult queer practices, fashion and queer coding, ugly feelings, and so much more. Xine talks about her research on queerness and race in 19th century America, about race and professions in literary history, but also about her experience of working on these subjects in a Canadian versus a British context. If you want to think about queerness and race, or if you would like to learn about the subversive potential of unfeeling, hit play!

Selected works by Xine (http://christineyao.com) :
PhDivas
Disaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth-Century America
https://www.dukeupress.edu/disaffected
“Femmes in Science: Queer Erasure and the Politics of Dress in Nineteenth Century America.” Gender in American Literature and Culture. Eds. Jennifer Harris and Jean Lutes. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2021.
“The Craft: QTPOC Tarot in Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki’s Skim.” Q&A: Voices from Queer Asian North America. Eds. Kale B. Fajardo, Alice Y. Hom, and Martin F. Manalansan. Temple University Press, forthcoming 2021.

Concepts, texts and people mentioned:

NoDAPL

Idol No More
Sara Ahmed’s The Cultural Politics of Emotion
Jules Gill-Peterson’s Histories of the Trans Child
Sianne Ngai’s Ugly Feelings
Sara Ahmed’s Feminist Killjoy
Gloria Anzaldúa
Audre Lorde
Martin Manalansan
Sianne Ngai’s Our Aesthetic Categories/Theory of the Gimmick
Susan Sontag
Invert
Jane Austen
Bildungsroman
James Barry
Radclyffe Hall’s Well of Loneliness
Elizabeth Phelps’ Doctor Zay
Mammy trope
LGBTQIA2S+
QTBIPOC
Mariko and Jillian Tamaki’s Skim
Dusk II Onyx

Ready for (a) reading? Follow Xine (@XineYaoPhD) and me (@Lena_Mattheis) on Twitter!

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1.What does Xine mean by ‘unfeeling’?
2.List some prejudices attached to being femme. Why are they harmful?
3.Please look up Sianne Ngai and try to write a brief definition of ‘ugly feelings’.
4.How does Xine describe the respective (literary) histories of the white woman doctor and the black woman doctor?
5.What does Xine mean by ‘frigidity’ in this context?
6.We talk about the undercut as an element of queer fashion. Can you think of other queer fashion moments? What do they say about sexuality and gender?
7.In how far is tarot a queer practice?

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In this episode, (the) Prof Terry Castle (Stanford University) joins me to discuss a corpus I don’t usually think about: lesbian content produced by cis-male authors. We talk about what’s great and not so great about these texts, which moments in literary history opened new doors for queer representation and why literature is such an apt medium to understand the fluidity of gender and attraction. Of course, we talk about many lesbian-authored texts as well and I am particularly grateful that Terry was open to talk about her own story and coming out.

Works by Terry mentioned:
The Professor and Other Writings (Harper Collins, 2010)
“The Lesbianism of Philip Larkin” (Daedalus 136.2, 2007)
The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall (Columbia UP, 2003)
The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture (Columbia UP, 1993)

Other writers and texts mentioned:
Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle
Shakespeare’s As You Like It and Twelfth Night
Ariosto
John Cleland’s Fanny Hill
Diderot
Balzac
Flaubert
Gautier’s Mademoiselle de Maupin
Collette’s Claudine novels
Sue Lanser’s Sexuality of History
Diana Souhami’s No Modernism without Lesbians
Aphra Behn
Natalie Barney
Djuna Barnes
Juvenal
Martial
Sappho
D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow
Henry James’ The Bostonians
Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sea Change” and The Garden of Eden
Gertrude Stein
Marcel Proust
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway
Lord Byron

Ahhhh! We didn’t get to talk about Terry’s art! Check it out on Instagram and Twitter (@ThierryChateau) and give me a follow as well, if you like (@Lena_Mattheis or @queerlitpodcast on Instagram).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening to this episode:
1.We briefly reference Terry’s book ‘The Apparitional Lesbian’ (1993). Please do a little bit of research on what the book is about and on what ‘apparitional’ can mean.
2.What is Terry’s favourite time in lesbian literary history and why?
3.Which types of female characters do we find in the 18th-century realist novel? Why is that interesting?
4.Terry talks about male writers producing lesbian literature. What are your thoughts on this? Please try to think through more than one position.
5.Why do writers go back to Ancient Greece to think about homosexuality? From what time onwards? What restricted access to texts?
6.Please comment on flat and round characters in Mrs Dalloway. Do you agree with Terry’s perspective?

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Get the garlic, sprinkle the holy water, but please, leave the antiqueer racism out of my Gothic romance! Dr Maisha Wester (Sheffield/Indiana University) explains why Horror films are so interesting to study, what Brexit has to do with Zombies, why King Kong film posters reveal blatant racism, and why ghosts are not always gay but most definitely queer. Lusty lesbian vampires, Cat People (are those the same?), spiders, sharks, and Supernatural fan fiction: this episode has everything the tell-tale heart could want.
Texts, Films and Stories mentioned:
Dracula
King Kong
Le Fanu’s Carmilla
Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
Family Guy
The Perfection
Roderick Ferguson’s The Nightmares of the Heteronormative
The Hottentot Venus
Raw
Cat People
I walked with a Zombie
Ganja & Hess
Arachnophobia
Jaws
Tendai Huchu’s The Library of the Dead
The Amityville Horror
Teju Cole’s Open City
Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild”
Supernatural
The Haunting of Bly Manor

Not scared enough? Follow Maisha (@maishawester) and me (@Lena_Mattheis) on Instagram and Twitter.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. In what ways are horror narratives and motifs political?
2. Why are queerness and race frequently negotiated in Gothic and horror stories?
3. Why are vampires often coded as queer? Which example for this does Maisha give? Do you have a favourite vampire?
4. What is the abject? What is Other(ing) in literary studies?
5. Open question: What do you think about the role of fear in the representation of queerness and race?

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Warning! This episode will turn you into a Jules Gill-Peterson (University of Pittsburgh) super fan -- if you are not one already. Jules talks about her research on the long and rich history of trans childhood, reflects on the construction of childhood (and its harmful implications) in Western Imperialist contexts and also shares some of her new work on DIY transitions. In addition to talking about some of her favourite children in the trans archives, Jules speaks about her own experience as a researcher and about the production of self-knowledge. Turns out: labels aren’t everything and they surely aren’t everything they’re made out to be.

Works and People mentioned:

Jules Gill Peterson’s Histories of the Transgender Child
“Dissociation as Trans Method II”
https://sadbrowngirl.substack.com/p/dissociation-as-trans-method-ii?justPublished=true
Joanne Meyerowitz
Susan Stryker
Rousseau’s Émile, or On Education
Magnus Hirschfeld
Kathryn Bond Stockton’s Making Out
Female Mimics
Leslie Feinberg’s Transgender Warriors (and Stonebutch Blues)

Find out more about the incredible Jules on her website (https://www.jgillpeterson.com/) or on Twitter (@gp_jls). Or, you know, find much less interesting content here (@Lena_Mattheis) on Instagram or Twitter.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. Why does Jules think that the concept of childhood is potentially more revelatory to think about than a definition of transness? How do trans children subvert hierarchies established through Western ideas of childhood?
2. Why are children unknowable? What does ‘unknowable’ mean?
3. How is the idea of childhood and immaturity used in a colonial context or to justify incarceration?
4. What does Jules mean when she says that “we really overinflate the power of signs”?
5. Have you ever known something about yourself despite not having a word to describe it? Can you think of an example for this from queer literature?
6. How can our perspective as literary studies scholars help us reflect on the production of self-knowledge?

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Start spreading the news! Dr Davy Knittle joins me for a chat about what queerness has to do with cities, why heteronormative architecture can make life difficult for queer people and queer kinship, how poets desire cityscapes, and what all of this has to do with compulsory able-bodiedness and racism. We also talk about our dogs and why we feel the local park can be a great gay space. My favourite bit? Davy reading from Eileen Myles. I think you should hit play now.

Texts and people mentioned:

Karen Tongson, Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries (NYU Press, 2011)
Robert McRuer, “Compulsory Able-Bodiedness and Queer/Disabled Existence” in Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities, edited by Sharon L. Snyder, Brenda Jo Brueggeman, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. Modern Language Association of America, 2002. 301-308.
George Chauncey, “Privacy Could Only Be Had in Public': Forging a Gay World in the Streets” in Gay New York, Basic Books, 1994. 179-205.
Julie Abraham, Metropolitan Lovers: The Homosexuality of Cities (University of Minnesota Press, 2009)
Trans Wellness Conference: www.transphl.org (@TransPHL)
Thomas Hobbes
Calvin & Hobbes
Eileen Myles, “Hot Night” in Not Me (Semiotext(e), 1991).
Richard Florida, Cities and the Creative Class, (Routledge, 2005).
Dionne Brand, What We All Long For (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008).
Patjim Statovci, My Cat Yugoslavia, Translated by David Hackston (Pushkin Press, 2017)
Zeyn Joukhadar, The Thirty Names of Night (Simon and Schuster, 2020).
One of many studies on the racial wealth gap in the US: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/

Want to paint the town queer? Why not check out more of Davy’s work here (https://davyknittle.squarespace.com/) and follow me on Instagram and Twitter (@Lena_Mattheis).

Also, Davy was way too humble to mention this but many moons ago he had a conversation with THE Eileen Myles and you can listen to it here: http://jacket2.org/podcasts/not-me-ness-eileen-myles-and-davy-knittle.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening to this episode:

1. How does Davy define the term city? Can you think of different ways to define it?
2. Please give an example of heteronormative architecture or urban planning from your own life. How does this example affect queer living? How does it affect other marginalized people who do not identify as queer?
3. What is Richard Florida’s gay index? Why is it problematic?
4. What does Davy say about the relationship between literary and urban studies?
5. Can you think of an example of a queer text, film or series that depicts urbanity as central to queer life?

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In this episode, Dr Shamira Meghani (Cambridge University) talks to me about queerness and caste, about how imperialism shapes gender, about why people associate Islam with unfreedom, and about how literature can help us understand more about all of these intersections. They also explain what sexual dissidence means and why a tabloid newspaper suggested that the university that started the first MA programme on sexuality in Britain needed to be ‘disinfected’… Fascinating stuff and lots to think about! Give it a listen!

Books, people and terms mentioned:

Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence (University of Sussex, founded in 1991)
Jonathan Dollimore’s Sexual Dissidence
Alan Sinfield
Anne McClintock’s Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest
Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World
Indian Penalty Code, 1860
The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2018
Hijra
Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai’s Same-Sex Love in India: Readings in Indian Literature
Endogamy
B. R. Ambedkar
Bhramin
Dalit
Laws of Manu (Manu-smriti)
R. Raj Rao’s The Boyfriend
Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses
Ackley Bridge (Channel 4)
Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater
Ogbanje
Ben Okri’s The Famished Road
POSE
Mj Rodriguez

Oh, hi! Still reading? Then why not follow me on Instagram and Twitter (@Lena_Mattheis). See you there!

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening to this episode:

1. What is sexual dissidence?
2. How does imperialism relate to gender and sexuality?
3. What does queerness have to do with caste? What is caste?
4. Which non-binary genders are mentioned in this episode?
5. Why can it be problematic to think of other groups of people as unfree? Please try to think of further examples for this harmful ascription.

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How do you get from wild theory all the way to wild swimming? By taking a deep dive with Prof Jack Halberstam (Columbia University) of course! Jack takes us where the wild things crawl and on the way, we discuss masculinities, the creative powers of failure, our difficult relationships to non-human animals, nudity and queer bodies, queerness, colonialism and capitalism, and, naturally, our favourite swimming pools. We also dip into some great queer texts, including but by no means limited to: gay falconry novels, animation films, eco-critical writing and non-binary theory.

Works by Jack mentioned:
The Wild Beyond: Music, Architecture and Anarchy (forthcoming)
Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire (Duke UP, 2020)
Trans: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variance (University of California Press, 2018)
“Unbuilding Gender: Trans Anarchitectures In and Beyond the Work of Gordon Matta-Clark” (Places Journal, October 2018)
Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (Beacon Press, 2012)
The Queer Art of Failure (Duke UP, 2011)
Female Masculinity (Duke UP, 1998)

Other texts, people and concepts mentioned:
Pinky and the Brain
Paul Preciado’s potentia gaudendi (Testo Junky)
Jane Bennett’s vitality (Vibrant Matter)
Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents
Helen MacDonald’s H is for Hawk
T.H. White’s The Goshawk (ferox)
T.H. White’s The Once and Future King
Glenway Wescott
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince
J.A. Baker’s The Peregrin
Rachel Carson’s The Silent Spring
Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto
Colin Dayan’s With Dogs at the Edge of Life
Gail Bederman
George Mosse
Freikörperkultur
Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain
Jos Charles’ Feeld
Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox
Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

Want to flood your feed with more ferox content? Check out http://www.jackhalberstam.com/bio/ and follow us on Instagram (@jackhalberstam @Lena_Mattheis) and Twitter (@Odo86700462 @Lena_Mattheis).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening to the podcast:

1. Where does Jack see the potential in reading animation through a queer lens?
2. What can masculinity be? What is it not?
3. How does (im)maturity relate to queerness and binary thinking?
4. In which ways does Jack see the relationship of humans to non-human animals as highly problematic? What are his thoughts on Donna Haraway?
5. From this episode, what do you think Jack’s definition of queerness would be?
6. Please write down a few sentences or key words on what ‘wildness’ is and try to think of a text that you think could be classified as wild.

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In this episode, Prof Chris Mounsey (University of Winchester) takes us on a wild ride: from meeting French philosophers as an undergrad, to the other day when construction workers gave him admiring verbal feedback for his (awesome) tattoos. And guess what, both of these encounters have to do with queerness and disability, or variability – the term Chris prefers. We talk about everything from passing as able-bodied or straight to why sexually explicit novels are so important. Although in the episode, I was rudely unable to remember his name, we also talk about Ryan O’Connell and his Netflix series Special. Chris then shares some important insights on the ‘curative narrative’ and provides some steamy book recommendations. Give it a listen!

Scholars and Books mentioned:
Queer People Conference (with Caroline Gonda)
VariAbility Conference
Foucault’s History of Sexuality
Peculiar Bodies Book Series
Teresa Michals’s Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals: Amputee Officers in Nelson’s Navy
Peter Radford’s Women Athletes of Early Modern Britain (forthcoming)
Routledge Advances in the History of Bioethics Book Series
Van Rensselaer Potter’s definition of Bioethics
Jean-François Lyotard
Luce Irigaray’s Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche (Amante Marine)
Jacques Derrida
David Hume
John Maxwell
Nicholas Saunderson
Edward Carpenter
Virginia Woolf
T.S. Eliot
Penelope Aubin’s The Life and Amorous Adventures of Lucinda (1721)
Priscilla Pointon
Thomas Gills
Ryan O’Connell’s Special
Rosemarie Garland Thomson, “A Habitable World: Harriet McBryde Johnson’s ‘Case for My Life.’” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 30, no. 1 (Winter 2015): 300–306.
Peter Singer’s “Ethics and Disability”
John Rechy’s Numbers (1964) and City of Night (1963)

Chris’s work:
Sight Correction: Vision and Blindness in Eighteenth-Century Britain
The Idea of Disability in the 18th Century
Developments in the Histories of Sexualities: In Search of the Normal,1600-1800
(Ed. with Carolina Gonda) Queer People: Negotiations and Expressions of Homosexuality, 1700-1800

You want more, more, more? Why not check out Chris’s very own music at https://bearfffbear.bandcamp.com/ and follow me on Instagram and Twitter (@Lena_Mattheis).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. At one point, Chris says that “variability enshrines uniqueness”. What does this mean? What is variability?
2. What are the three elements that Chris uses to describe variability?
3. What does Chris dislike about the term ‘disability’? What does that have to do with binary thinking?
4. How do queerness and variability intersect in Chris’ thinking?
5. What is the role of literature in studying queerness and variability?

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Dr Elizabeth Reed (University of Southampton) is a cultural sociologist doing exciting research on bi-erasure, media representation and queer life-building. In this episode, Lizzie explains why bi relationships can be so difficult to describe, where we might need new language and where we might not, what and who queer families identify with and (most importantly) what soup dragons have to do with all of this. If that gets you curious, or if you’ve ever defined your identity using a wine metaphor, this one is for you.

Texts, Series and People mentioned:
Modern Family
The Fosters
Mae Martin’s Feel Good
Lewis, S. (2018). International Solidarity in reproductive justice: surrogacy and gender-inclusive polymaternalism. Gender, Place & Culture, 25(2), 207-227.
The Clangers
Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers Series
Schitt’s Creek
Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples’s graphic novel series Saga

Work by Lizzie mentioned:
Reed, E. (2020). Lesbian, bisexual and queer motherhood: crafting radical narratives and representing social change through cultural representations. In Imagining Motherhood in the Twenty-First Century Routledge.
Reed, E. (2018). The heterogeneity of family: responses to representational invisibility by LGBTQ parents. Journal of Family Issues, 39(18), 4204-4225. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X18810952
Hayfield, N., Campbell, C., & Reed, E. (2018). Misrecognition and managing marginalisation: Bisexual people’s experiences of bisexuality and relationships. Psychology & Sexuality, 9(3), 221-236.
Wood, R., Litherland, B., & Reed, E. (2020). Girls being Rey: ethical cultural consumption, families and popular feminism. Cultural Studies, 34(4), 546-566.

You want to build a queerer life? Start by following Lizzie (@ReedLizzie) and me (@Lena_Mattheis) on Twitter.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. Which terms does Lizzie mention in addition to biphobia? How are they distinct?
2. What is queer methodology?
3. How does Lizzie study queer families and media representation?
4. In what form does Lizzie study Rey Skywalker and girlhood?
5. Why does Lizzie think queer families relate to cultural texts are not explicitly queer?

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A delightful episode with Mara Gold (St Hilda’s College, Oxford), aka the Sapphic Scholar, who talks to me about Sappho (duh…), homosociality, queer college life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, lesbian love letters and surprise pubic hair in the queer archives. Mara is a historian, knows her way around Ancient Greece and Egypt, she works on and in museums, and get this: she has even worked as an archaeologist in the field. Best of all, Mara brings a refreshing and entertaining Sapphic perspective to everything she does – including this here podcast. Please note that the sound quality isn’t great but it gets better throughout the episode. Apologies!

People, texts and places mentioned:
Sappho
V&A Museum
Pitt Rivers Museum
HD
Elizabeth Bishop
Katherine Mansfield
Michael Fields
Mary Barnard
Anne Carson (fragment 168b translation)
Eve Sedgewick Kossofsky
Henry Thornton Warton
Sharon Marcus. Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2007.
If These Walls Could Talk 2

Need more Sappho on your socials? Follow Mara and me on Instagram and Twitter (@sapphic_scholar/@Lena_Mattheis).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is homosociality?
2. Why does Mara study women‘s educational environment? How are colleges Sapphic?
3. Why does Sappho become so important at this particular point in time (end of 19th, beginning of 20th century)?
4. Which functions does Sappho serve in the queer community?
5. Could you comment on the reception history of Sappho’s work? What made this complicated?

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In this episode, Dr Daniella Gáti (Brandeis University) explains why the internet is queer, how gaming and the form of the vignette relate to queerness and why we should (or should not) watch Queer Eye. If you're intrigued by the notion of queerness as a a 'blob', give this a listen.

Scholars mentioned in this episode:
Whitney Pow
Bo Ruberg
Lee Edelman
Jack Halberstam
Sara Ahmed (“What’s the Use”, Feminist Killjoy Blog, @SaraNAhmed)
Jen Jack Gieseking (“A Queer New York”, “The Gender, Sexuality, & Space Reading List”, http://jgieseking.org/)
Judith Butler

Films, books, series, magazines and social media mentioned:
Qlit (https://qlit.hu/en/home/)
Autostraddle (https://www.autostraddle.com/)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “The Danger of a Single Story” (https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en)
@herstorycats
Anna Pulley: “The Lesbian Sex Haiku Book (with Cats!)”
Sarah Waters: “Affinity” and “Tipping the Velvet”
“Queer Eye”
JVN (@jvn, @curiouswithjvn)
Laverne Cox: “Free Cece”

Learn more about Daniella's work here: https://dgati.github.io/ and follow us on Twitter here: @gati_daniella and here: @Lena_Mattheis.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is electronic literature?
2. What is a vignette?
3. What do you think Daniella means by “media-archeological approach”?
4. What does Daniella say about definitions of queerness?
5. How does queerness relate to fragmentation (in texts) and glitches (in games)?
6. When speaking about Whitney Pow’s work, Daniella explains that it is in the nature of archives to erase transness. Why do you think that could be? Can you think of an example?

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Prof Susan Lanser (Brandeis University) joins me for this one – what an honour! Sue is one of the architects of narratology and has conducted groundbreaking research on queer women, lesbians and the Sapphic (among 500 other things and while being completely humble, charming and wonderful). In this episode, she provides insights on queerness in history, literature, culture and narrative form. She also talks about her research on Israeli-Palestinian narratives and, of course, about her brilliant book “The Sexuality of History”.

Texts, films and authors mentioned:
Gérard Genette
Valerie Traub
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan
The Living Handbook of Narratology (Hamburg University)
Sami Adwan and Dan Bar-On’s “Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine”
“Kiss Me Kosher”
Isaac de Benserade’s “Iphis and Ianthe” (1634, after Ovid)
Poetry of Katherine Phillips
Djuna Barnes’ “Ladies Almanack”
Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”

Sue’s scholarly work mentioned:
(with Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan) "Narratology at the Checkpoint: The Politics and Poetics of Entanglement." Narrative 27.3 (2019): 245-269.
"Queering Narrative Voice." Textual Practice 32.6 (2018): 923-937.
(with Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan) "Israeli–Palestinian narratives and the politics of form: reading Side by Side." European Journal of English Studies 20.3 (2016): 310-325.
"Gender and Narrative." Handbook of Narratology. De Gruyter, 2014. 206-218.
https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/86.html
The Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565-1830. University of Chicago Press, 2014.
"Speaking in Tongues: Ladies Almanack and the Language of Celebration." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (1979): 39-46.

Want to find out more about Queer Lit and who I will speak to next? Find me on Twitter (@Lena_Mattheis) or check out pictures of my home office pets on Instagram (lena_mattheis).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is the relationship between Feminism and Queer Studies?
2. What does Sue think about the relationship of content and form in literature?
3. Is there such a thing as queer form?
4. According to Sue, which century is ‘the’ century of the word lesbian?
5. Why is it important to think, not just about the history of sexuality, but also about the sexuality of history?
6. Why is the year 1928 particularly significant in queer literature?

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Dr Olu Jenzen (University of Brighton) joins me for this episode on queer screens: from the silver screen, to the small screen to the smartphone screen. We talk about queer film and series, visual activism, digital queer spaces and, guess what, we even talk about queer teeth. Olu does incredible work for and with young trans people, researches their use of social media and also shares her insights on lesbian doppelgangers and queer sensibility in contemporary film and series. Since I am not quite as eloquent as Olu, I mention “technomachismo” when we talk about gendered and racial data bias. As you may have guessed, I meant to say technochauvinism.

Olu’s research mentioned (a lot of it is open access):
The Aesthetics of Global Protest: Visual Culture and Communication (edited by Aidan McGarry, Itir Erhart, Hande Eslen-Ziya, Olu Jenzen, Umut Korkut)
“The symbol of social media in contemporary protest: Twitter and the Gezi Park movement” (Aidan McGarry, Itir Erhart, Hande Eslen-Ziya, Olu Jenzen, Umut Korkut)
“Trans youth and social media: moving between counterpublics and the wider web”
“Queer teeth: exploring traumatic health legacies”
“Revolting doubles: radical Narcissism and the trope of lesbian Doppelgangers”

Series mentioned:
Pose
Lena Waithe’s Twenties
Transparent
Gentleman Jack

Filmmakers mentioned:
Matthew Hellett
Campbell X
Oska Bright Film Festival (Queer Freedom, Love Bites)
https://oskabright.org/

Book mentioned:
Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is visual activism?
2. Why is the motif of the doppelganger relevant to queer studies? Can you think of an example of a doppelganger in literature or film?
3. What does Olu say about the connection between Otherness and queerness?
4. What does it mean to do participant-led research?
5. Why are online platforms biased? How does this affect queer life and, in particular, black trans people?
6. What does Olu mean by queer sensibility?

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I get to chat with LaVelle Ridley (University of Michigan) about her doctoral research on black trans life narratives in this one and I must say, she’s a tonic. From important observations on the role of storytelling in political and community activism to the deeply personal process of healing that appropriate representation can initiate, LaVelle covers it all. She’s a scholar, an activist, a pisces (hell, yes!), a creative writer, a mermaid, and an absolute delight to talk to. Don’t miss this one; it’s fun!

Texts and people mentioned:
Paradise on the Margins: Lessons and Dreams from Trans Women of Color
https://www.paradiseonthemargins.com/
Atargatis
https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/
Susan Stryker
Maggie Nelson’s “The Argonauts”
Janet Mock’s “Redefining Realness” (2014) and “Surpassing Certainty” (2017)
CeCe McDonald
Toni Newman
Venus Di'Khadijah Selenite
Laverne Cox and Jac Gares’ “FREE Cece!”
Ridley, LaVelle. "Imagining Otherly: Performing Possible Black Trans Feminist Futures in Tangerine." TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 6.4 (November 2019): 481-490.
LaKisha Simmons
“Tangerine”
Mya Taylor
Kiki Rodriguez
Mj Rodriguez
POSE
Kai Cheng Thom’s “Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars”
Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
https://lavelleridley.wixsite.com/mysite

Need more queer stuff on your socials? Follow LaVelle and me on Twitter (@lridley16/@Lena_Mattheis) and Instagram (academicfish/lena_mattheis).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is life narrative? Can you think of an example for this from literature or film?
2. Where does LaVelle locate the role of storytelling and self narrating? How does it intersect with activism?
3. Which poet does LaVelle quote when she speaks about ‘containing multitudes’? Why is this poet relevant in this context?
4. Why is it productive to trouble genre distinctions? What is a genre?
5. Why does LaVelle find it important to be personal in her research? What does this mean to her?

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Dr Alberto Fernández Carbajal (University of Roehampton) tells me all about their insightful book Queer Muslim Diasporas in Contemporary Literature and Film (2019) in this episode. We cover their favourite reads and learn what a Muslim perspective can teach us about queerness. This kind of research is all about changing perspectives and fostering understanding, so I do hope you will be understanding when it comes to the sound of Alberto’s beautiful scarf that I was unable to remove from the audio entirely…

Check out Alberto's book here:
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526128102/

Scholars and concepts mentioned:
John McLeod’s Life Lines: Writing Transcultural Adoption
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/life-lines-writing-transcultural-adoption-9781472590404/
Lena Mattheis’s Translocality in Contemporary City Novels
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030666866
James Procter’s Diaspora
Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology
Abraham B. Weil’s Trans*versality
Ibn al-'Arabi’s Imaginal

Novels and films mentioned:
Abdellah Taïa’s Salvation Army
Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette/The Buddha of Suburbia
Ian Iqbal Rashid‘s A Touch of Pink
Ferzan Özpetek's Hamam’s The Turkish Bath (Steam in the US)
Shamim Sarif's I Can't Think Straight
Sally El Hosaini's My Brother the Devil
Rolla Selbak's Three Veils
Rabih Alameddine: Koolaids/The Hakawati
Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home
Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts
Audrey Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Guess what? Alberto is on Twitter (@AlbyFCarbajal), as am I (@Lena_Mattheis).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. Why is it important to think postcolonial and queer perspectives together?
2. What does ‘diaspora’ mean and why is it central to Alberto’s research?
3. What does intersectionality mean here?
4. What is the white saviour?
5. What does Alberto say about Muslim storytelling?

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In this episode, Diana Souhami explains how Modernism was fundamentally shaped by lesbians* and queer people. We talk about how Sylvia Beach published Joyce’s "Ulysses" when no publisher would touch it, how Bryher financed penniless artists who then became the crème de la crème of Modernism, how H.D. arguably wrote better imagist poetry than Pound, and which lesbian love affairs resulted in the most enticing scandals. Diana, who I may or may not have heard being referred to as Lesbian Royalty, has written an entire book about this: "No Modernism without Lesbians" (2020). From Paris salons of the early 20th century to fighting the patriarchy in the history books and syllabi of the 21st century, Diana covers it all.

Authors and books mentioned:
Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness
Sappho
Natalie Barney
Getrude Stein
Bryher
H.D.
Sylvia Beach
James Joyce’s Ulysses
T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland
Ezra Pound
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
Vita Sackville-West
Violet Trefusis’ Broderie Anglaise
Oscar Wilde
Dolly Wilde
Janet Flanner

Publishers mentioned:
Contact Editions
Shakespeare and Company

Visual artists mentioned:
Picasso
Matisse
Cezanne
The Fauves

Diana Souhami’s books mentioned:
Gluck, 1895-1978: Her Autobiography
No Modernism Without Lesbians
Alice and Gertrude
Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter

Find out more about Diana here: https://dianasouhami.com/

If you’re looking for more lesbian content, follow @DianaSouhami on Twitter and check out @Lena_Mattheis as well.

“Silence is the biggest enemy of women and lesbian women. […] If you don’t exist, you can’t be any trouble.” (Diana Souhami in this episode)

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. Why were people such as Natalie Barney so inspired by Sappho? Why go back all the way to Ancient Greek poetry?
2. Why was Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness banned?
3. Why, according to Diana, would Modernism not have happened without lesbians*?
4. Why was Sylvia Beach “intrinsic to Modernism”?
5. What is a lavender marriage?
6. Which Paris salons were important for queer women and Modernist artists and why?

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In this episode, I am talking to Ashley Thornton (Brighton University) about epicene pronouns and gender-inclusive language. Ashley is a corpus linguist working on singular they in English, Spanish and Russian and has some insights on the history of gender-neutral pronouns as well. The scholars (and Twitter accounts) referenced in this episode are:

Olu Jenzen @DrOluJenzen
Charlotte Stormbom
Laura Hekanaho @LHekanaho
Joshua Paiz (their account's private) @JMPaiz_PhD
Kris Knisley @krisknisely
Kirby Conrod @kirbyconrod
Dennis Baron @DrGrammar
Ute Gabriel and Pascal Gygax

And while you're at it, follow Ashley (@AR_Thornton) and Lena (@Lena_Mattheis) as well or check out @queerlitpodcast on Instagram!

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What are epicene pronouns? How are they used?
2. What are neopronouns?
3. Is using singular they a recent trend?
4. How does Ashley research the use of singular they? In which languages and contexts?
5. How does research in corpus linguistics work?
6. Why is singular they important for the queer community?

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In this episode, Dr Kit Heyam (Northumbria University) shares wonderful tidbits from trans and non-binary histories, talks about their book on queer king Edward II and is generally delightful and clever. Kit also talks about how they approach queering history, the intersections of literary studies and historical research and their favourite contemporary queer reads, such as "The Lauras" by Sara Taylor, "My Autobiography of Carson McCullers" by Jenn Shapland or "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Other texts we talk about:
"Edward II" by Christopher Marlowe
"The Reputation of Edward II, 1305-1697: A Literary Transformation of History" by Kit Heyam
(https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463729338/the-reputation-of-edward-ii-1305-1697)
"The Roaring Girl" by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker
Marjorie Rubright' article "Transgender Capacity in Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton's The Roaring Girl (1611)', Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 19.4 (2019), 45-74
"Trumpet" by Jackie Kay
"Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides
"Girl, Woman, Other" by Bernardine Evaristo
"Little Fish" by Casey Plett

Why not follow Kit (@krheyam) and Lena (@Lena_Mattheis) on Twitter and read more about Kit's work as a scholar and activist here: https://kitheyam.com/.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. How do the study of literature and of history intersect in Kit’s work?
2. Why is it difficult to label historical figures as trans, lesbian or gay? What does Kit do instead?
3. What does Kit say about authorship and contemporary queer literature?
4. The central aim of Kit’s work is to show that transness and queerness are not ‘new’. Why do you think this is important?

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