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A show about queer women in history and historic literature, plus coverage of the field of sapphic historical fiction. Content note: May include discussions of sex within an academic context.
Episodes
Friday Sep 18, 2020
Friday Sep 18, 2020
When did we become Lesbians?
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 29
This episode discusses the history of words for women who loved women throughout recorded European history. What words were used? Where did they come from? What shades of meaning did they have? And how did those meanings change over time?
In this episode we talk about the following words:
- Greek: hetairistriai
- Greek and Latin: tribas, tribades
- Latin: lesbian
- English: sapphist
- Latin: fricatrix
- Words related to “sodomite” and “bugger”
- The tricky case of “hermaphrodite” and “virago”
- Slang terms like rubster, lollepot, and tommy
- Arabic: suhaqiyya, tharifa
- Links to entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project that discuss these and related words can be found in the “Vocabulary Terms” section of this blog entry
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Friday Sep 18, 2020
Friday Sep 18, 2020
Book Appreciation with Farah Mendlesohn
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 28 with Heather Rose Jones
In the Book Appreciation segments, our featured authors (or your host) will talk about one or more favorite books with queer female characters in a historic setting.
In this episode Farah Mendlesohn recommends some favorite queer historical novels:
A transcript of this podcast may be available here. (Transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Farah Mendlesohn Online
- Website: Farah Mendlesohn
- Twitter: @effjayem
Friday Sep 18, 2020
Friday Sep 18, 2020
Interview with Farah Mendlesohn
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 27 with Heather Rose Jones
A series of interviews with authors of historically-based fiction featuring queer women.
In this episode we talk about:
- I chat with Farah Mendlesohn about her brand new lesbian Regency romance Spring Flowering.
- How did a literary theorist specializing in fantasy and science fiction come to write historic romance?
- Why was the 17th century a great time to set fiction about women loving women?
- How does historical fiction writer Geoffrey Trease come into things?
- How Spring Flowering came out of a challenge and a NaNoWriMo project.
- Books mentioned
- Spring Flowering by Farah Mendlesohn
- In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815 by Jenny Uglow
- Beulah Marie Dix (she wrote historical fiction in the early 20th century and was known to have relationships with women)
- Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery (mentioned as “In the Georgian Household”)
- A Very Queer Family Indeed: Sex, Religion, and the Bensons in Victorian Britain by Simon Goldhill
A transcript of this podcast may be available here. (Transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Farah Mendlesohn Online
- Website: Farah Mendlesohn
- Twitter: @effjayem
Friday Sep 18, 2020
Friday Sep 18, 2020
On the Shelf for November 2017
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 26 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly update on what the Lesbian Historic Motif Project has been doing.
In this episode we talk about:
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Premodern Sexualities - a collection of papers on the history of sexuality
- Knighton’s Chronicle - a primary text mentioned in the “female knights” essay
- Thinking Sex with the Early Moderns - a theory-heavy book on the process of doing the history of sexuality
- The Lesbian Premodern - another collection focusing on theory and historiography but specifically looking at lesbian premodern history as a field of study
- An article on a medieval English joint memorial brass
- Announcing this month’s author guest, Farah Mendlesohn, and her debut novel Spring Flowering
- New and forthcoming fiction
- Still waiting to start this segment.
- Ask Sappho: Rose Herman-Pall asks “How did women in history signal to each other that they were Sapphically inclined, especially if they were in marriages to men?”
- Call for submissions for the new LHMP audio short story segment. See here for details. See here for details.
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Thursday Sep 17, 2020
Thursday Sep 17, 2020
Female Knights in Shining Armor
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 25 with Heather Rose Jones
Does your heart thrill to the clash of swords, the gleam of sunlight on a polished helm, and the snap of silken banners in the breeze at a tournament field? And then the helmet is removed by the victorious knight to reveal a fair face and a tumble of flowing locks and the crowd gasps to know a woman is champion? Well this podcast is for you.
In this episode we talk about:
- Joan of Arc and what wearing armor meant symbolically for her
- The 12th century Spanish “Order of the Hatchet”, an order of woman knights
- The gang of ladies who showed up at a 14th century tournament in Berwick in men’s clothing
- A 13th century German tale of women holding a tournament when their men were off at war
- The French romance of Yde and Olive and how a woman knight won the hand of a king’s daughter in marriage
- The Romance of Silence, which includes an exceedingly modern-sounding debate between personifications of Nature and Nurture for they loyalty of a girl raised as a boy
- Amazon knights in Renaissance epic poems such as Orlando Furioso and The Faerie Queene, who attracted the love of fair ladies
This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
- Jeanne d’Arc
- Knighton, Henry and G. H. Martin (trans.). 1995. Knighton’s Chronicle 1337-1396. Clarendon Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-820-503-1
- Westphal-Wihl, Sarah. 1989. “The Ladies’ Tournament: Marriage, Sex, and Honor in Thirteenth-Century Germany” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 14/2: 371-398
- Yde and Olive
- Silence
- Amazons
Other sources
- Order of the Hatchet
- Donoghue, Emma. 2010. Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 978-0-307-27094-8
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Thursday Sep 17, 2020
Thursday Sep 17, 2020
Book Appreciation with Caren Werlinger
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 24 with Heather Rose Jones
In the Book Appreciation segments, our featured authors (or your host) will talk about one or more favorite books with queer female characters in a historic setting.
In this episode Caren recommends some favorite queer historical novels:
A transcript of this podcast may be available here. (Transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Caren Werlinger Online
- Website: CJ Werlinger
- Facebook: Caren Werlinger
Thursday Sep 17, 2020
Thursday Sep 17, 2020
Interview with Caren Werlinger
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 23 with Heather Rose Jones
A series of interviews with authors of historically-based fiction featuring queer women.
In this episode we talk about:
- The approach of framing a historic story within a modern character’s interaction with that story. The uses of parallel lives to create reader connection.
- How Caren used dreams and book inscriptions as a way of connecting the present with the past. How present lives can heal past wounds.
- Historic fiction as a way of bringing the past to life and giving women the adventures and stories they’re denied in history books.
- The challenge of researching the small details.
- Using 8th century Ireland as a setting for fantasy adventure. What makes a specific historic context an inviting place for fantastic stories? The “what if” factor. How does history constrain the invention?
- Favourite research sources for early Ireland:
- https://aliisaacstoryteller.com (Irish folklore and myth)
- Internet searches for the flora and fauna of 8th century Ireland
- Books mentioned
A transcript of this podcast may be available here. (Transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Caren Werlinger Online
- Website: CJ Werlinger
- Facebook: Caren Werlinger
Thursday Sep 17, 2020
Thursday Sep 17, 2020
On the Shelf for October 2017
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 22 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly update on what the Lesbian Historic Motif Project has been doing.
In this episode we talk about:
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Books on the queer history of Boston and on the concept of the Boston Marriage in modern psychology
- Medieval penitential manuals that address same-sex relations
- Works on sexuality and same-sex relations in medieval Europe
- Announcing this month’s author guest, Caren Werlinger
- New and forthcoming fiction
- The new and forthcoming fiction segment was added later
- Ask Sappho:
- Where did I get the music that introduces and closes the podcast?
- What did people think about queens who had same-sex relations? Did it affect what the common people and the people of the court thought of them?
- This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
- Donoghue, Emma. 1995. Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-017261-4
- Hutcheson, Gregory S. “Leonor López de Córdoba and the Configuration of Female-Female Desire” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn), Palgrave, New York, 2001.
- anser, Susan S. 2014. The Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565-1830. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-18773-0
- Merrick, Jeffrey & Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. 2001. Homosexuality in Early Modern France: A Documentary Collection. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-510257-6
- Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
The Highwaywoman Special
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 21 with Heather Rose Jones
This is my first “fifth week special” episode, when I have to come up with something outside my 4-topic rotation. Today we have a multi-media look at female highwaymen in history, song, and story, including five lesbian highwaywoman romances.
In this episode we talk about:
- The historic era of the highwaymen
- Ballads featuring female highwaymen (you get to hear me sing!)
- Women in history who went “on the pad” as they say, or who were rumored to have done so
- The most popular formula for lesbian highwaywoman novels
- Five lesbian highwaywoman romances, plus one bonus highway robbery incident
The various persons and works discussed or presented in this podcast (in order of appearance) are as follows. Some historic references may apply to more than one person.
- “The Highwayman” (excerpt, lyrics by Alfred Noyes music by Phil Ochs, performed by Heather Rose Jones)
- “The Female Highway Hector”, 1683-1703 (excerpt, anonymous broadside ballad, sung to the tune “The Rant”, performed by Heather Rose Jones)
- Historic highwaywomen Joan Bracey, Ann Meders, Nan Hereford
- Rumored highwaywomen Katherine Ferrers (“The Wicked Lady”) and Mary Frith (Moll Cutpurse)
- “Sovay, or The Female Highwayman” (full text, traditional ballad, music traditional?, performed by Heather Rose Jones)
- For cross-dressing motifs in literature in general:
Novels with Highwaywoman Romances
- Rebeccah and the Highwayman by Barbara Davies (Bedazzled Ink, 2008)
- The Locket and the Flintlock by Rebecca S Buck (Bold Strokes Books, 2012)
- Daring and Decorum by Lawrence Hogue (Supposed Crimes, 2017)
- The Mask of the Highwaywoman by Niamh Murphy (self-published, 2017)
- Behind the Mask by Kim Larabee (Alyson Books, 1989 out of print)
- “The Mazarinette and the Musketeer” by Heather Rose Jones (self-published, 2016)
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
What Medieval Lesbians Did in Bed
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 20 with Heather Rose Jones
This episode looks at the historic evidence for the specific sexual techniques enjoyed between women in the middle ages and Renaissance. Caution: although this essay isn’t intended as erotica, it does include a lot of detailed technical descriptions of bodies, sex acts, and sex toys. The content is very definitely Not Safe For Work.
In this episode we talk about:
- What are the sources of historic evidence for this question?
- Which sources can we trust for what women were actually doing, and which ones are more likely to be about what men thought they were doing?
- Did the repertoire of sexual techniques change over time? Was it different indifferent places?
- What was the range of activities that medieval people considered to be “sex”? How did it differ from modern definitions?
This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
- Benkov, Edith. “The Erased Lesbian: Sodomy and the Legal Tradition in Medieval Europe” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages. ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn. Palgrave, New York, 2001.
- Borris, Kenneth (ed). 2004. Same-Sex Desire in the English Renaissance: A Sourcebook of Texts, 1470-1650. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-1-138-87953-9
- Brown, Judith C. 1984. “Lesbian Sexuality in Renaissance Italy: The Case of Sister Benedetta Carlini” in Signs 9 (1984): 751-58. (reprinted in: Freedman, Esteele B., Barbara C. Gelpi, Susan L. Johnson & Kathleen M. Weston. 1985. The Lesbian Issue: Essays from Signs. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0-2256-26151-4)
- Crompton, Louis. 1985. “The Myth of Lesbian Impunity: Capital Laws from 1270 to 1791” in Licata, Salvatore J. & Robert P. Petersen (eds). The Gay Past: A Collection of Historical Essays. Harrington Park Press, New York. ISBN 0-918393-11-6 (Also published as Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 6, numbers 1/2, Fall/Winter 1980.)
- Lansing, Carol. 2005. “Donna con Donna? A 1295 Inquest into Female Sodomy” in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History: Sexuality and Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, Third Series vol. II: 109-122.
- Matter, E. Ann. 1989. “My Sister, My Spouse: Woman-Identified Women in Medieval Christianity” in Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, eds. Judith Plaskow & Carol P. Christ. Harper & Row, San Francisco.
- Merrick, Jeffrey & Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. 2001. Homosexuality in Early Modern France: A Documentary Collection. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-510257-6
- Mills, Robert. 2015. Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-16912-5
- Murray, Jacqueline. 1996. "Twice marginal and twice invisible: Lesbians in the Middle Ages" in Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage, Garland Publishing,. pp. 191-222
- Puff, Helmut. 2000. "Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477)" in Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies: 30:1, 41-61.
- Schibanoff, Susan. “Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis of Stade: The Discourse of Desire” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn), Palgrave, New York, 2001.
- Traub, Valerie. 2002. The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-44885-9
- Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)