The Lesbian Premodern

by N. Giffney (Editor), M. Sauer (Editor), P D Watt (Editor)

Overview

Key scholars in the field of lesbian and sexuality studies take part in an innovative conversation that offers a radical new methodology for writing lesbian history and geography, drawing new conclusions on the important and often overlooked work being done on female same-sex desire and identity in relation to premodern cultures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230616769
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	01/11/2011
Series:	The New Middle Ages
Edition description:	2011
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Noreen Giffney is a research coordinator in the Graduate Research and Education Programme in Gender, Culture, and Identity in the Humanties Institute at the University College Dublin, Ireland.

Table of Contents

Preface Karma Lochrie xiii

Acknowledgments xix

Introduction: The Lesbian Premodern Noreen Giffney Michelle M. Sauer Diane Watt 1

Part I Theories and Historiographies

1 The Present Future of Lesbian Historiography Valerie Traub 21

2 A "Wrangling Parliament": Terminology and Audience in Medieval European Literary Studies and Lesbian Studies Anne Laskaya 35

3 Lesbian History and Erotic Reading Lara Farina 49

4 The Queer Time of the Lesbian Premodern Carla Freccero 61

5 "Virgins" and "Not-Women": Dissident Gender Positions Theodora A. Jankowski 75

Part II Readings and Histories

6 Virgin Desires: Reading a Homoerotics of Female Monastic Community Lisa M.C. Weston 93

7 Medieval Barbie Dolls: Femme Figures in Ascetic Collections Anna Klosowska 105

8 Naming Love: The God Kama, the Goddess Ganga, and the Child of Two Women Ruth Vanita 119

9 Remembering Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge Judith M. Bennett 131

10 Toward a Philology of the Premodern Lesbian Helmut Puff 145

Part III Encounters with the Lesbian Premodern

11 Lesbian Time Heike Bauer 161

12 A Usable Past? Lillian Faderman 171

13 Sacramentality and the Lesbian Premodern Elizabeth Freeman 179

14 Necessity Is the Invention of Lesbians Linda Garber 187

15 Lesbian Ghosts Martha Vicinus 193

Afterword: The Lesbian Premodern Meets the Lesbian Postmodern Robyn Wiegman 203

Select Bibliography 213

About the Contributors 221

Index 225

Editorial Reviews

"The editors of The Lesbian Premodern have gathered here the work of some of the most prominent and accomplished scholars of pre- and early modern female sexualities. In the brilliantly conceived and executed latter part of the book they bring provocative scholars of later periods into conversation with this medieval and early modern scholarship. The result is a dynamic interrogation of fundamental concepts, demonstrating vividly how this pre- and early modern material impacts the entire field." - Carolyn Dinshaw, New York University

"It has been the case for some time now that the most rigorous and mind-bending queer scholarship focuses on medieval and early modern sexualities. This collection represents what is best in this work, and clears the way for an open-ended conversation across periods. Prepare to be schooled in the pleasures of anachronism." - Heather Love, University of Pennsylvania

"The Lesbian Premodern's editors have collected a rich and flexible set of texts that speak to and out of myriad sources to discover sites where same-sex desire might be discerned in small gaps in the history of the inaudible . . . The Lesbian Premodern's daring derives from its editors' purposeful gathering of texts that tangle temporalities to make a nonmodern lesbian - italics and quotation mark free - typographically possible." - Michèle Aina Barale, Amherst College

"The Lesbian Premodern is a stunning achievement in laying the groundwork for a long overdue transhistorical sexuality studies, one that does not assume simplistic diachronicities between the past and present, but which instead tracks and problematizes the complex and untimely traffic between 'Then' and 'Now' . . . . What emerges is a potent and unprecedented framework for the writing of new lesbian histories and theories, as well as the forging of new relational virtualities between scholars who might otherwise never 'hook up'." - Eileen A. Joy, editor of postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies and Lead Ingenitor, BABEL Working Group

From the Publisher