Lesbian eXcursions: Journeying through the personal narrative – Bibliography

© Nicki Hastie

Dissertation submitted for the degree of M.A. Modern Literature: Theory and Practice, University of Leicester 1991

If you are quoting from or printing parts of this page, please give full acknowledgement and reference as: Nicki Hastie (1991) Lesbian eXcursions: journeying through the personal narrative [WWW] https://www.nickihastie.uk/my-writing/essays/lesbian-excursions-bibliography (add date you visited this page)

Some parts of this dissertation were revised and subsequently published as Nicki Hastie, “Lesbian Bibliomythography” in Gabriele Griffin (ed.) Outwrite: Lesbianism and Popular Culture London: Pluto Press, 1993 pp.68-85

Bibliography

I refer the reader who wishes to be reminded of my opinions about sources used in this study to Note 69.

Abel, Elizabeth (ed.): Writing and Sexual Difference (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1982)
Abel, Elizabeth, Hirsch, Marianne & Langland, Elizabeth (eds.): The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1983)
Adelman, Marcy (ed.): Long Time Passing: Lives of Older Lesbians (Boston: Alyson Publications, 1986)
Brady, Maureen: “Insider/Outsider Coming of Age” in Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions eds. Karla Jay & Joanne Glasgow (New York: New York University Press, 1990)
Brossard, Nicole: “Lesbians of (Writing) Lore” in Out The Other Side: Contemporary Lesbian Writing eds. Christian McEwan & Sue O’Sullivan (London: Virago, 1988).
Brown, Rita Mae: Rubyfruit Jungle (New York: Bantam, 1977 (first published 1973))
Brown, Rita Mae: “Take a Lesbian to Lunch” in Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation eds. Karla Jay & Allen Young (New York: Douglas Books, 1972)
Bruford, W.H.: The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975)
Buckley, Jerome Hamilton: Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974)
Chew, Martha: “Rita Mae Brown: Feminist Theorist and Southern Novelist” in Women Writers of the Contemporary South ed. Peggy Whitman Prenshaw (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984)
Christian, Barbara: Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers (New York: Pergamon Press, 1985)
Cook, Blanche Wiesen: “Women Alone Stir My Imagination: Lesbianism and the Cultural Tradition” Signs 4, no.4 (Summer 1979): 718-39
Cooper, Fiona: Not the Swiss Family Robinson (London: Virago, 1991)
Crow, Christine: Miss X or The Wolf Woman (London: The Women’s Press, 1990)
DeLynn, Jane: Don Juan in the Village (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1991)
D’Emilio, John: Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983)
Faderman, Lillian: Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (London: The Women’s Press, 1985 (first published 1981))
Felski, Rita: “The Novel of Self-Discovery: a Necessary Fiction?” Southern Review: Literary
and Interdisciplinary Essays 19, no.2 (July 1986): 131-48
Felski, Rita: Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change (London: Hutchinson Radius, 1989)
Ferguson, Mary Anne: “Lisa Alther: The irony of return?” in Women Writers of the Contemporary South ed. Peggy Whitman Prenshaw (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984)
Fishbein, Leslie: “Rubyfruit Jungle: Lesbianism, Feminism and Narcissism” International
Journal of Women’s Studies 7, no.2 (March-April 1984): 155-59
Forrest, Katharine V.: Curious Wine (London: Silver Moon Books, 1990 (first published 1983))
Friedan, Sandra: “Shadowing/Surfacing/Shedding: Contemporary German Writers in Search of a Female Bildungsroman” in The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development eds. Elizabeth Abel, Marianne Hirsch & Elizabeth Langland (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1983)
Fuss, Diana: Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature and Difference (London: Routledge, 1990)
Gay Left Collective (ed.): Homosexuality: Power and Politics (London: Allison & Busby, 1980)
Hall, Radclyffe: The Well of Loneliness (London: Virago, 1982 (first published 1928))
Hennegan, Alison: “On Becoming a Lesbian Reader” in Sweet Dreams: Sexuality, Gender and Popular Fiction ed. Susannah Radstone (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1988)
Hirsch, Marianne: “The Novel of Formation as Genre: Between Great Expectations and Lost Illusions” Genre 12, no.3 (Fall 1979): 293-311
Hokenson, Jan: “The Pronouns of Gomorrha: a Lesbian Prose Tradition” Frontiers 10, no.1
(1988): 62-69
Jay, Karla: “Portrait of the Lesbian as a Young Dyke” in Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation eds. Karla Jay & Allen Young (New York: Douglas Books, 1972)
Jay, Karla: “Coming Out as Process” in Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book ed. Ginny Vida (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1978)
Jay, Karla & Glasgow, Joanne (eds.): Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions (New York: New York University Press, 1990)
Jelinek, Estelle C. (ed.): Women’s Autobiography: Essays in Criticism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980)
Johnston, Jill: Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973)
Keener, Karen M.: “Out of the Archives and into the Academy: Opportunities for Research and Publication in Lesbian Literature” College English 44, no.3 (March 1982): 301-13
Kennard, Jean E.: “Ourself Behind Ourself: a Theory for Lesbian Readers” Signs 9, no.4 (Summer 1984): 647-62
Kitzinger, Celia: The Social Construction of Lesbianism (London: Sage, 1987)
Klein, Yvonne M.: “Myth and Community in Recent Lesbian Autobiographical Fiction” in Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions (New York: New York University Press, 1990)
Krieger, Susan: “Lesbian Identity and Community: Recent Social Science Literature” Signs 8, no.1 (Autumn 1982): 91-108
Labovitz, Esther Kleinbord: The Mythi of the Heroine: The Female Bildungsroman in the Twentieth Century (New York: Peter Lang, 1986)
Lauretis, Teresa de (ed.): Feminist Studies/Critical Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986)
Lesbian History Group: Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbians in History 1840-1985 (London: The Women’s Press, 1989)
Lorde, Audre: Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (London: Sheba, 1990 (first published 1982))
Lynch, Lee: “Cruising the Libraries” in Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions eds. Karla Jay & Joanne Glasgow (New York: New York University Press, 1990)
Mandrell, James: “Questions of Genre and Gender: Contemporary American Versions of the Feminine Picaresque” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 20, no.2 (Winter 1987): 149-70
Martin, Del & Lyon, Phyllis: Lesbian/Woman (San Francisco: Gilde Publications, 1972)
Palmer, Paulina: “Contemporary Lesbian Feminist Fiction: Texts for Everywoman” in Plotting Change: Contemporary Women’s Fiction ed. Linda Anderson (London: Edward Arnold, 1990)
Ponse, Barbara: Identities in the Lesbian World: The Social Construction of Self (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1978)
Radstone, Susannah (ed.): Sweet Dreams: Sexuality, Gender and Popular Fiction (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1988)
Redding, Maggie: The Life and Times of Daffodil Mulligan (London: Brilliance Books, 1984)
Rich, Adrienne: Blood, Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985 (London: Virago, 1986)
Rule, Jane: Lesbian Images (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1975)
Stambolian, George & Marks, Elaine (eds.): Homosexualities and French Literature: Cultural Contexts/Critical Texts (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979)
Stein, Gertrude: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (London: Penguin, 1977 (first published 1933))
Stimpson, Catharine R.: “The Mind, the Body and Gertrude Stein” Critical Inquiry 3 (Spring 1977): 489-506
Stimpson, Catharine R.: “Zero Degree Deviancy: the Lesbian Novel in English” in Writing and Sexual Difference ed. Elizabeth Abel (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1982)
Stimpson, Catharine R.: “Reading for Love: Canons, Paracanons and Whistling Jo March” New Literary History 21 (1990): 957-76
Stone, Albert E.: Autobiographical Occasions and Original Acts: Versions of American Identity from Henry Adams to Nate Shaw (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982)
Wagner, Linda W.: “Plath’s The Bell Jar as Female Bildungsroman” Women’s Studies: an Interdisciplinary Journal 12, no.1 (1986): 55-68
Weeks, Jeffrey: Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (London: Quartet, 1977)
Weeks, Jeffrey: Sexuality and its Discontents: Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985)
Weeks, Jeffrey: “Questions of Identity” in The Cultural Construction of Sexuality ed. Pat Caplan (London: Tavistock, 1987)
Weeks, Jeffrey: Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800 (London: Longman, 2nd ed., 1989)
Wilson, Elizabeth: “Tell it Like it is: Women and Confessional Writing” in Sweet Dreams: Sexuality, Gender and Popular Fiction ed. Susannah Radstone (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1988)
Winterson, Jeanette: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (London: Pandora, 1985)
Wittig, Monique: The Lesbian Body (New York: Avon Books, 1975 (Le Corps Lesbien, 1973))
Wittig, Monique: “Paradigm” in Homosexualities and French Literature: Cultural Contexts/Critical Texts eds. George Stambolian and Elaine Marks (Ithaca: Cornwell University Press, 1979)
Wittig, Monique: “The Straight Mind” in For Lesbians Only: a separatist anthology eds. Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Julia Penelope (London: Onlywomen Press, 1988)
Wittig, Monique: “One is Not Born a Woman” in For Lesbians Only: a separatist anthology eds. Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Julia Penelope (London: Onlywomen Press, 1988)
Zimmerman, Bonnie: “Exiting From patriarchy: The Lesbian Novel of Development” in The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development eds. Elizabeth Abel, Marianne Hirsch & Elizabeth Langland (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1983)
Zimmerman, Bonnie: “The Politics of Transliteration: Lesbian Personal Narratives” Signs 9, no. 4 (Summer 1984): 663-82
Zimmerman, Bonnie: “What Has Never Been: An Overview of Lesbian Feminist Criticism” in The New Feminist Criticism ed. Elaine Showalter (London: Virago, 1986)

So here I am – driven to leave my quiet-ish hiding place (of late) and send some comments out into the world. It’s hard to have anything new or powerful enough to say about the atrocity in Orlando, FL, USA this weekend, but I must register my voice of grief, outrage, solidarity and connection with LGBT+ communities and allies everywhere. My thoughts are with all those who have been affected directly through the loss and injury of loved ones, and through the weight of being witness.

Some facts are clear. A heavily-armed man murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others at the LGBT+ Pulse nightclub. This was an act of hatred and homophobia (also biphobia and transphobia), and the majority of those targeted were people of colour during a Latina/Latino/Latinx night. All believed themselves to be in a safe place of celebration during a month of worldwide Pride events.

Here are some other commentaries which say far more than I can:

Latinx LGBTQ community response from Isa Noyola interviewed on Democracy Now (warning – this video contains a shameful clip of Donald Trump taking advantage of the massacre to spread anti-Muslim hate speech).

Orlando is just the tip of the iceberg – a powerful article by Jane Czyzselska, editor of UK Diva Magazine for lesbian and bi women.

Statement from the British Psychological Society recognising that members of LGBT+ communities experience high levels of abuse, discrimination and psychological distress.

I’m sad and angry and confused. It seems to have been a default position of mine recently. But at least these emotions make sense in these circumstances, even if I will never be able to understand how someone can plan and carry out such an attack. I am unable to understand any crimes of hate, whoever is being abused and killed. I have empathy beyond the communities I specifically identify with. It’s important I say this because some despicable individuals are already using the Orlando shooting to encourage different marginalised communities to turn against each other. We must not let that happen.

News sites are reporting (surmising) today that Omar Mateen was most likely gay himself and therefore chose to kill people in a LGBTQ venue due to intense self-loathing. As if this somehow stops the attack being an act of homophobia! As if it’s suddenly explained and means all others in wider society need take no further responsibility and can file it in a tidy box which requires minimal scrutiny: Oh, that’s alright, then – it was just one queer of a certain faith we can’t be bothered to understand killing a load of other queers we can’t be bothered to understand. They only have themselves to blame!

Don’t you see? No person starts out hating themselves or others. It comes from years of indoctrination and prejudice, where instead of being embraced and celebrated, difference and diversity are viewed as the enemy. When you think of love, what do you see? Who do you include?

On Sunday 12 June, I posted this on Facebook:

Fuck! Why do some of us care? And the rest are intent on destroying the whole world. You don’t have to understand me to not want to kill me. I’ve spent my whole life trying to hurt no-one but myself. I shouldn’t even want to hurt myself. If there was more empathy for diversity, far more of us may survive.

All of my Facebook friends are trying to comfort each other right now.

I understand something about self-hatred. I really do. The agonising attempt to explain to yourself why recognising you’re different from a so-called ‘norm’, and regularly being misunderstood, can make you feel as if there is something fundamentally wrong with your whole being. That your very self is the problem. It’s sad enough when that personal inner struggle only destroys the individual experiencing it. But where does the destruction end when fear and hate is routinely justified? No-one decides to hate. It is taught and it is validated by legislation. The Orlando massacre comes after lawmakers in the US filed more than 200 anti-LGBT Bills.

This fear of difference goes way beyond sexuality. I have experienced this feeling of self-doubt, self-sabotage and insecurity around my mental health. Some of my close friends will know of a new journey of self-exploration I’m just embarking on. It’s not the time to talk about that but, ultimately, this will be positive for me, and I will write about it when I’m ready.

Actually, I’m not sure I have ever *hated* myself for being a lesbian. I just feel as if I’ve been bruised and punished a lot, and that is why the poem below refers to “being a lesbian / would be one / prompt apology.” I am who I am. I’m proud of that. I have not, do not, and I never will apologise. But I have always had to be ready to defend myself which can sometimes amount to the same thing.

It’s another blackout poem, taking words from an interview with author Emma Donoghue which appeared in the Observer Magazine on 8 May 2016. It makes a lot of sense to me, but I wish it didn’t mean so much. I wish I didn’t have to write about being sad, confused and fearful.

It was two weeks ago when I chose to highlight these words and create a new personal commentary. It doesn’t help much with understanding the atrocity in Orlando. But in light of the terribly sad events, perhaps I can ask you to read between the lines to find another space which invites connection, remembers to begin with love, and doesn’t have to end on hate.

Lesbian Essays and Other Writings by Nicki Hastie

Creative & academic essays, social commentary, a touch of memoir and poetry

Lesbian eXcursions: Bibliography

Lesbian eXcursions: Journeying through the personal narrative – Bibliography

© Nicki Hastie

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