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Sometimes this blog is a dispassionate and intellectual summary of academic research. Sometimes it's a total squee-fest about a great source or a fascinating piece of historical evidence. And sometimes it's the equivalent of rage-tweeting. This one has turned into the last. Ungerer's article is a valuable single source for most of the documentary evidence of Mary Frith's life.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 72 (previously 26d) - Moll Cutpurse - transcript

(Originally aired 2018/09/22 - listen here)

In conjunction with this month's podcast essay, I'm covering a couple of publications, both scholarly articles and primary sources, about Mary Frith, aka Moll Cutpurse. Moll is a great example of what I'm talking about regarding the details of actual history being far more fascinating than the tropes they often evolve into in popular culture.

No thoughtful introduction. Posting on my phone from the middle of a big key ride. Needless to say the main entry was set up in advance!

ETA: You can tell I was posting from my phone because "big key ride" was supposed to be "bike ride".

If the last 30 years have seen a blossoming in academic research on homosexuality in history, they have seen an even more drastic shift in the academic approach to transgender topics in history. It's one thing to take a hard, dispassionate look at attitudes towards transgender topics within the historic context itself. It's a bit more painful to read the work of "modern" academics and recognize how their work is tainted by the application of frameworks that themselves are products of a specific historic and social context.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 71 (previously 26c) - Book Appreciation with K. Aten - transcript

(Originally aired 2018/09/15 - listen here)

Heather Rose: This week, we welcome back author Kelly Aten to talk about some historically-based stories with queer women that she’s particularly enjoyed. Glad to have you back, Kelly.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 70 (previously 26b) - Interview with K. Aten - transcript

(Originally aired 2018/09/08 - listen here)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 69 (previously 26a) - On the Shelf for September 2018 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2018/09/01 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for September 2018.

As I have found on previous occasions, there are a good number of survey articles on women's sexuality or even specifically on women's homoeroticism published in the 1980s and 1990s that--at this point--are mostly useful to include in the LHMP for the purpose of saying "don't bother with this, it's thoroughly outdated." So why do I include them? Several reasons. One is as a service to you, dear reader. One is so I can keep track of the fact that I have looked at them so I don't keep adding them to "to do" lists.

In the words of the sage, "You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss..." But that's never been true in western culture. A kiss is never "just" a kiss. And all the various meanings that kissing can have create what we might think of as "Schroedinger's intimacy" where observers decide whether a kiss is a sign of erotic intimacy based on their assumptions about the relationship of the people involved.

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