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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
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Book Appreciation with Genevieve Fortin
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 19 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 Genevieve Fortin recommends her favorite queer historical novel:
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 Genevieve Fortin Online
- Website: Genevieve Fortin
- Twitter: @kenefief
- Facebook: Genevieve Fortin
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Interview with Genevieve Fortin
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 18 with Heather Rose Jones
A series of interviews with authors of historically-based fiction featuring queer women.
In this episode we talk about:
- How interviewing Franco-American families in New England inspired Water’s Edge
- Her love for literature from ca. 1900 and the decadent movement’s exploration of sexuality
- Researching the social and economic circumstances of immigrant communities in late 19th century New England
- Cluing your historic characters in on their sexual possibilities
- Plans for a sequel and to center lesbian characters in the history of Quebec
- Books mentioned
- Water’s Edge by Genevieve Fortin
- Monseiur Vénus by Rachilde
- Nana by Émile Zola. 1880
- The Franco-Americans by Yves Roby.
More info
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 Genevieve Fortin Online
- Website: Genevieve Fortin
- Twitter: @kenefief
- Facebook: Genevieve Fortin
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
On the Shelf for September 2017
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 17 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly update on what the Lesbian Historic Motif Project has been doing.
In this episode we talk about:
- Why I’m recording this more than a month before it airs, and how you’re all missing out on hearing about my trip to Europe, which will have just finished then.
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0 (We’ve spent this month going through the chapters on legal records, celebrity gender benders, women’s romantic relationships in convents, homoerotic motifs on stage and in novels, and the visual stereotype of lesbians in early modern Spain)
- Books on Boston Marriage and the queer history of Boston
- Announcing this month’s author guest, Genevieve Fortin
- New and forthcoming fiction
- The new/forthcoming boos segment hasn’t been added yet.
- Ask Sappho: An anonymous poster on the facebook group asks: What are some lesbian novels set during the American Civil War?
- Through the Hourglass edited by Sacchi Green and Patty G. Henderson
- Firefly by Whitney Hamilton
- Promising Hearts by Radclyffe
- House of Clouds by K. I. Thompson
- Words Heard in Silence by T. Novan and Taylor Rickard (Note: In later books in this series, it beomes clear that the character of Charlie Nolan is a trans man, not a woman using gender disguise. But in this first book, my understanding is that is not yet how the character understands his identity.)
- The War Between the Hearts by Nann Dunne
- Miserere by Caren J. Werlinger
- Divided Nation, United Hearts by Yolanda Wallace
- Beguiled & Her Beguiling Bride by Paisley Smith
- Sabre by Rhavensfyre
- And this article gives examples of real-life women who fought and spied in the Civil War in male disguise, just like many of the characters in these novels.
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- 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)
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Beguines, Boston Marriage, and Bed Death: Historic Archetypes of Asexual Lesbianism
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 16 with Heather Rose Jones
This show takes a tour through a variety of social models in European history that recognized committed romantic partnerships between women that did not focus on sexual desire.
In this episode we talk about:
- Emotional partnerships between women dedicated to religious chastity
- The rise of Neo-Platonic friendship as a model for women’s relationships
- The divergence between models of erotic and platonic female partnerships
- The rise of the Romantic Friendship over the 17th to 19th centuries and how economic changes made it an achievable ideal
- The origin of the term Boston Marriage
- The concept of “political lesbianism”
- The myth of “lesbian bed death” and how it can speak to some couples
This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
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)
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Book Appreciation with Catherine Lundoff
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 15 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 Catherine Lundoff recommends some favorite queer historical novels:
- Tomoe Gozen by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
- Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue
- Kissing the Witch (collection) by Emma Donoghue
- Affinity by Sarah Waters
- Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
- Also a nod to The Armor of Light by Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett (queer authors, but queer male protagonists)
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 Catherine Lundoff Online
- Website: Queen of Swords Press, Catherine’s newsletter, and the History of LGBTQ Speculative Fiction column “Out of the Past”
- Twitter: @clundoff
- Twitter - Queen of Swords Press: @qospress
- Twitter - Emily L. Byrne (pen name for erotica): @emilylbyrne
- Facebook: Catherine Lundoff
- Facebook: Queen of Swords Press
- Facebook: Emily L. Byrne
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Interview with Catherine Lundoff
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 14 with Heather Rose Jones
A series of interviews with authors of historically-based fiction featuring queer women.
In this episode we talk about:
- How Alexandre Dumas and quitting law school started Catherine’s writing career
- Sources of historic inspiration
- Her favorite genres
- Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare’s fictional sister
- Her aspiration to blend Regency romance and pirates
- Catherine’s academic background in history and feminist anthropology
- Queen of Swords Press and other projects
- Plans for publishing historical fiction with fantastic elements under Queen of Swords Press
- Books mentioned
- Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories by Catherine Lundoff.
- "M. Le Maupin" in Lesbian Short Fiction, edited by Jinx Beers. Vol 3, Fall, 1997. Tantra Publications.
- The Encyclopedia of Amazons by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
- Wild Women: Crusaders, Curmudgeons, and Completely Corsetless Ladies in the Otherwise Virtuous Victorian Era by Autumn Stephens
- “A Splash of Crimson” by Catherine Lundoff in Respectable Horror, ed. Ian Burdon. Fox Spirit Books, 2017.
- “Shakespeare’s Sister” in A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. 1929.
- A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess. 1995.
- “Great Reckonings, Little Rooms” by Catherine Lundoff (in Out of This World)
- "Regency Masquerade" by Catherine Lundoff, reprinted in Kissed By Venus, May, 2008. Originally published in the Harrington Park Lesbian Fiction Quarterly. Vol. 3 (1), Alice Street Editions, 2002. (Historical Romance). (Mentioned in the interview as “Bath Masquerade”)
- The Four Musketeers: The True Story of D'Artagnan, Porthos, Aramis & Athos by Kari Maund and Phil Nanson. Tempus, 2005.
- Aphra Behn: A Secret Life by Janet Todd. Fentum Press, 2017. (reprint of the 1997 edition The Secret Life of Aphra Behn)
- Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff
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 Catherine Lundoff Online
- Website: Queen of Swords Press, Catherine’s newsletter, and the History of LGBTQ Speculative Fiction column “Out of the Past”
- Twitter: @clundoff
- Twitter - Queen of Swords Press: @qospress
- Twitter - Emily L. Byrne (pen name for erotica): @emilylbyrne
- Facebook: Catherine Lundoff
- Facebook: Queen of Swords Press
- Facebook: Emily L. Byrne
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
On the Shelf for August 2017
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 13 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly update on what the Lesbian Historic Motif Project has been doing.
In this episode we talk about:
- The organization of the new weekly schedule li>
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
-
- Stepto, Michele & Gabriel Stepto (translators). Catalina de Erauso. Lieutenant Nun -- Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8070-7073-4li>
- Velasco, Sherry. 2000. The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire and Catalina de Erauso. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-78746-4
- Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
- Announcing this month’s author guest, Catherine Lundoff
- New and forthcoming fiction
-
- (The new and forthcoming fiction segment starts in a later month.)
- Ask Sappho: Sheena asks: “I would like a kind of breakdown of when it became illegal and legal to be lesbian. What I am finding interesting is that it wasn't always a big taboo what changed?”
- The following sources provide more information on the discussion topics:
-
- Crawford, Patricia & Sara Mendelson. 1995. "Sexual Identities in Early Modern England: The Marriage of Two Women in 1680" in Gender and History vol 7, no 3: 362-377.
- 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.
- Puff, Helmut. 2000. "Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477)" in Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies: 30:1, 41-61.
- Sears, Clare. 2015. Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-5758-2
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)
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Catalina de Erauso
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 12 with Heather Rose Jones
This is a brief tour through the life of an early 17th century Basque woman (or possibly trans man--though it’s tricky to use any sort of modern category label) who escaped from a convent at age 15, began living as a man, and went off to the Spanish colonies in the New World to seek fortune and adventure. She found plenty of adventure.
In this episode we talk about:
- The basic facts of Catalina’s life
- Why it’s difficult to try to apply modern categories of gender and sexuality to historic individuals
- The literary and pop culture context of early 17th century Spain that may have shaped how Catalina’s story was told--and even perhaps inspired her actions
- Catalina’s romantic and erotic encounters with women, and why they’re a bit less satisfying to a modern audience than we might wish
- Some exciting new changes to the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
Books mentioned
- The full text of Catalina de Erauso’s autobiography can be found in translation in:
- Stepto, Michele & Gabriel Stepto (translators). 1996. Catalina de Erauso. Lieutenant Nun -- Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-7073-4
- The other major sources used for this podcast are:
- Velasco, Sherry. 2000. The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire and Catalina de Erauso. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-78746-4
- Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
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)
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Sappho: The Translations
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 11 with Heather Rose Jones
In this show we’ll look at the legacy of Sappho from the Middle Ages up through the 19th century: the various images people had of her, how people used her as a symbol, the way those images affected how her poetry was translated into everyday languages, and how poets used her themes and imagery in their own work.
In this episode we talk about:
- How much poetry did Sappho write, and how much survives? Why was it lost, and why were the bits we have preserved?
- What was the changing image of Sappho from the middle ages through the 19th century? How did people reconcile their admiration for Sappho’s poetry and their disapproval of homosexuality?
- Who translated Sappho’s works and how did their opinions of her affect those translations?
The show will include recitations of the following poems:
- Ode to Aphrodite & Fragment #31: Jane McIntosh Snyder from Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho (20th century)
- “On a Lady Named Beloved” inspired by fragment #31: Anne de Rohan (1617), translated from the French
- Fragment #31: John Hall (1652)
- Fragment #31: Joseph Addison (1735)
- Ode to Aphrodite & Fragment #31: Abrose Philips (1748)
- “Eleanore” inspired by Fragment #31: Lord Tennyson (1832)
- Fragment #31 & “Imitation of Sappho” inspired by Fragment #31: Mary Hewitt (1845)
Books used as source material
- Addison, Joseph. 1735. The Works of Anacreon, Translated into English Verse, with Notes Explanatory and Poetical. To which are added the Odes, Fragments, and Epigrams of Sappho. London.
- Castle, Terry (ed). 2003. The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 0-231-12510-0
- Hall, John. 1652. Sappho’s On the Sublime.
- Snyder, Jane. 1997. Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Wharton, Henry Thornton. 1887. Sappho: Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings, and a Literal Translation. London.
This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
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)
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Sappho of Lesbos - The Woman and the Legend
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 10 with Heather Rose Jones
As a special Pride Month celebration, I’m recording a pair of episodes talking about the poet Sappho: what we know about her life and context, the legends that sprang up about her, what people of various ages thought of her, and most especially what they knew of her poetry, how they interpreted and even imitated it.
In this episode we talk about:
- The known facts of Sappho’s life
- What classical Greek and Roman writers said about her
- Possible explanations for some of the contradictory stories about her
- The social context for Sappho’s expressions of love and desire for women, and what sort of relationships were most likely involved
This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
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)