An enlightening, entertaining look at what the term lesbian really meansand what it means to be a lesbian Twenty-First Century Lesbian Studies focuses on the field’s institutionalization into the humanities and social sciences, examining how the term lesbian is used in activist, community, and cultural contexts, and how its use impacts the lives of women who have chosen it as an identity. The book’s contributors include many of the world’s foremost experts in lesbian studies, as well as scholars whose primary research is in bisexuality, transsexuality and transgender, intersex, and queer theory. The innovative essays touch on five individual themesGenealogies, Readings, Theories, Identities, and Locationsas they explore the past, present, and future of lesbian studies. Twenty-First Century Lesbian Studies places the term lesbian at the center of analysis, whether as a concept, a category, an identity, a political position, or an object choice. The book’s cutting-edge essays examine the various meanings of lesbian; the risks taken by women who live and/or act, write, and speak as lesbians; current genealogical myths; and the lives, studies, and activism of lesbians who represent a range of geographical and historical contexts. The book presents research produced outside the United States/United Kingdom, two places which tend to dominate the field, and essays that focus on areas, such as medieval studies, that are often ignored in theoretical discussions. Twenty-First Century Lesbian Studies considers these questions: does the term lesbian still have relevance as an identity descriptor or political position? who does lesbian include and/or exclude? how does intersectional thinking impact the way we formulate lesbian identities? are we now post-lesbian? what, if anything, defines the field of lesbian studies? what is the current state of the field? what is the possible future of the field? what current topics should be most important to practitioners? how is work that falls under the lesbian studies umbrella connected to efforts in the areas of feminism, LGBT, intersex, and queer straight studies? and many more Twenty-First Century Lesbian Studies is an enlightening, entertaining, and essential read for academics and students working in all disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, and for the lesbian/queer population, in general.

The best and most up-to-date scholarship and theory in lesbian studies since the first edition in 1982: "Lesbian studies" considers the history, present, and future of the field, challenging the limits of lesbian studies.

Queer Studies is designed as an advanced undergraduate textbook in queer studies for this rapidly growing field. It is also appropriate as a required or recommended graduate textbook. The author uses the overarching concept of queering as a way of looking at the lives of queer people across a range of disciplines.

With contributions from leading scholars across the entire range of French studies, this up-to-date volume examines both the current state of French studies in the United Kingdom, as well as its future in an increasingly interdisciplinary world where student demand, new technologies, and developments in transnational education are changing the ways in which we teach, learn, research and assess achievements. Required reading for French studies scholars worldwide, this volume builds upon the findings of the influential Review of Modern Foreign Languages Provision in Higher Education and maps the present and future of the field.

Queering Gay and Lesbian Studies is a broadly interdisciplinary study that considers a key dilemma in gay and lesbian studies through the prism of identity and its discontents: the field studies has modeled itself on ethnic studies programs, perhaps to be intelligible to the university community, but certainly because the ethnic studies route to programs is well established. Since this model requires a stable and identifiable community, gay and lesbian studies have emphasized stable and knowable identities. The problem, of course is that sexuality is neither stable, tidy, nor developmental. With the advent of queer theory, there are now other perspectives available that frequently find themselves at odds with traditional gay and lesbian studies. In this pioneering new study, Thomas Piontek provides a critical analysis of the development of gay and lesbian studies alongside the development of queer theory, the disputes between them, and criticism of their activities from both in and outside of the gay academic community. Examining disputes about transgendering, gay male promiscuity, popular culture, gay history, political activism, and non-normative sexual practices, Piontek argues that it is vital to queer gay and lesbian studies--opening this emerging discipline to queer critical interventions without, however, further institutionalizing queer theory.

This interdisciplinary volume of thirty original essays engages with four key concerns of queer theoretical work - identity, discourse, normativity and relationality. The terms ’queer’ and ’theory’ are put under interrogation by a combination of distinguished and emerging scholars from a wide range of international locations, in an effort to map the relations and disjunctions between them. These contributors are especially attendant to the many theoretical discourses intersecting with queer theory, including feminist theory, LGBT studies, postcolonial theory, psychoanalysis, disability studies, Marxism, poststructuralism, critical race studies and posthumanism, to name a few. This Companion provides an up to the minute snapshot of queer scholarship from the past two decades and identifies many current directions queer theorizing is taking, while also signposting several fruitful avenues for future research. This book is both an invaluable and authoritative resource for scholars and an indispensable teaching tool for use in the classroom.

Lesbian Subjects gathers essays - primarily from feminist studies between 1980 and 1993 - and traces lesbian studies from its beginnings, examining the difficulties of defining a lesbian perspective and a lesbian past - a culture, social milieux, and states of mind.

Increasing specialization within the discipline of English and American Studies has shifted the focus of scholarly discussion toward theoretical reflection and cultural contexts. These developments have benefitted the discipline in more ways than one, but they have also resulted in a certain neglect of close reading. As a result, students and researchers interested in such material are forced to turn to scholarship from the 1960s and 1970s, much of which relies on dated methodological and ideological presuppositions. The handbook aims to fill this gap by providing new readings of texts that figure prominently in the literature classroom and in scholarly debate − from James’s The Ambassadors to McCarthy’s The Road. These readings do not revert naively to a time “before theory.” Instead, they distil the insights of literary and cultural theory into concise introductions to the historical background, the themes, the formal strategies, and the reception of influential literary texts, and they do so in a jargon-free language accessible to readers on all levels of qualification.

Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century reflects the brave new world of bisexual women's lives through an eclectic collection of articles that typifies an ongoing feminist process of theory grounded in life experience. The book's broad scope addresses a world created in response to lesbian-feminism, homophobia within the mainstream women’s movement, and sexism within the gay rights movement. The book includes Carol Queen's memoirs of the swinging lesbian scene in the 1970s, a critical examination of Alice Walker's novel The Temple of My Familiar, and a look back at the controversy surrounding bisexual inclusion in the Northampton Lesbian and Gay Pride March in Massachusetts in the early 90s. Previous groundbreaking work on bisexuality had to focus on breaking the silence around bisexual invisibility. This collection works from that foundation to explore the complexities and histories of bisexual women's lives. Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century examines: tensions between lesbians and bisexual women the shifting place of bisexual women in society the use of skin color as a charged metaphor the inclusion of bisexuality into queer theory groundbreaking new work on bisexual youth the creative use of the sacred whore archetype Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century is an essential source of social and political critique, and a vital resource for anyone interested in the complex dynamics of human sexuality, regardless of sexual orientation.

Feminist anthropology emerged in the 1970s as a much-needed corrective to the discipline’s androcentric biases. Far from being a marginalized subfield, it has been at the forefront of developments that have revolutionized not only anthropology, but also a host of other disciplines. This landmark collection of essays provides a contemporary overview of feminist anthropology’s historical and theoretical origins, the transformations it has undergone, and the vital contributions it continues to make to cutting-edge scholarship. Mapping Feminist Anthropology in the Twenty-First Century brings together a variety of contributors, giving a voice to both younger researchers and pioneering scholars who offer insider perspectives on the field’s foundational moments. Some chapters reveal how the rise of feminist anthropology shaped—and was shaped by—the emergence of fields like women’s studies, black and Latina studies, and LGBTQ studies. Others consider how feminist anthropologists are helping to frame the direction of developing disciplines like masculinity studies, affect theory, and science and technology studies. Spanning the globe—from India to Canada, from Vietnam to Peru—Mapping Feminist Anthropology in the Twenty-First Century reveals the important role that feminist anthropologists have played in worldwide campaigns against human rights abuses, domestic violence, and environmental degradation. It also celebrates the work they have done closer to home, helping to explode the developed world’s preconceptions about sex, gender, and sexuality.