Take Stage! is the first comprehensive "how-to" book for lesbians wanting to produce or direct lesbian theatre. Controversial and anecdotal, Take Stage! is written for the lesbian with no previous experience with theatre or lesbian organization. In addition to chapters on auditioning, rehearsals, selecting the script, booking space, and assembling a staff, the book includes chapters on issues of special interest to lesbians. Take Stage! includes information on how to challenge the "isms"-lookism, racism, classism, ageism, and other prejudices with which lesbian culture is currently engaged. It also looks at problems of accountability in non-hierarchal structures, boundary-setting among all-volunteer staffs, sabotage via hidden agendas or disassociative behaviors, horizontal hostility, and internalized homophobia. The appendix contains sample contracts, audition forms, light plots, budgets, and schedules. From the decision to produce the play to opening night and touring, Take Stage! covers all the bases and provides a healthy dose of moral support.

Ethnicity, culture, and sexual orientation are salient aspects of human identity. While diversity adds richness to the threads of our human tapestry, minorities often feel vulnerable with open disclosure and retreat from exposures they fear could leave them in jeopardy. This is especially so with the lesbian and gay community. Under the skilled editorship of Beverly Greene, Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Among Lesbians and Gay Men explores a broad range of culture-related topics specific to the experience of this populationùand is courageously presented by an outstanding, diverse group of contributors. Along with empirical, clinical, and theoretical discussions, the inclusion of personal narrative offers poignant insight into additional complexities, pressures, and losses that lesbians and gay men must cope with in a world that often handles diversity with the closed fist of bigotry. Academics, researchers, students, and the interested lay reader will find Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Among Lesbians and Gay Men both accessible and engaging. The volume is ideal for courses in psychology, social psychology, gender studies, sociology, human services, interpersonal violence, and ethnic studies.

Acclaimed for his intricate, incisive, and often controversial explorations of art, literature, and society, Leo Bersani now addresses homosexuality in America. Hardly a day goes by without the media focusing an often sympathetic beam on gay life--and, with AIDS, on gay death. Gay plays on Broadway, big book awards to authors writing on gay subjects, Hollywood movies with gay themes, gay and lesbian studies at dozens of universities, openly gay columnists and even editors at national mainstream publications, political leaders speaking in favor of gay rights: it seems that straight America has finally begun to listen to homosexual America. Still, Bersani notes, not only has homophobia grown more virulent, but many gay men and lesbians themselves are reluctant to be identified as homosexuals. In Homos, he studies the historical, political, and philosophical grounds for the current distrust, within the gay community, of self-identifying moves, for the paradoxical desire to be invisibly visible. While acknowledging the dangers of any kind of group identification (if you can be singled out, you can be disciplined), Bersani argues for a bolder presentation of what it means to be gay. In their justifiable suspicion of labels, gay men and lesbians have nearly disappeared into their own sophisticated awareness of how they have been socially constructed. By downplaying their sexuality, gays risk self-immolation--they will melt into the stifling culture they had wanted to contest. In his chapters on contemporary queer theory, on Foucault and psychoanalysis, on the politics of sadomasochism, and on the image of "the gay outlaw" in works by Gide, Proust, and Genet, Bersani raises the exciting possibility that same-sex desire by its very nature can disrupt oppressive social orders. His spectacular theory of "homo-ness" will be of interest to straights as well as gays, for it designates a mode of connecting to the world embodied in, but not reducible to, a sexual preference. The gay identity Bersani advocates is more of a force--as such, rather cool to the modest goal of social tolerance for diverse lifestyles--which can lead to a massive redefining of sociality itself, and of what we might expect from human communities.

Roof's ambitious, wide-ranging book links narrative theory, theories of sexuality, and gay and lesbian theory to explore the place of homosexuality, and specifically the lesbian, in the tradition of western narrative. According to Freud, perversions are the necessary obstacles in a heroic plot of normal heterosexual development; and homosexuality is the nineteenth century's classic case of perversion. Roof builds on Freud to illustrate that a structural understanding of narrative enforces a heterosexual paradigm, a sense of meaning that provides psychological stability for the reader. Looking at film, television, and lesbian novels, Roof explores how ideas of narrative and sexuality inform, determine, and reproduce one another. She identifies the paradigmatic lesbian story, its unvarying repetition, and how it might be recast. Understanding identification as a narrative practice, and narrative as typically heterosexual and reproductive, Roof shows how sexuality and narrative must be disentangled to alter oppressive social practices. "Come As You Are" marks a significant contribution to lesbian and gay studies, psychoanalytic theory, and feminism.

Collects for the first time major lesbian plays from controversial cultural perspectives spanning more than a generation of work in varied theatrical styles representing an amazing gamut of lesbian politics from all over America. Includes: The Quintessential Image (Jane Chambers) * The Postcard (Gloria Joyce Dickler) * A Lady and a Woman (Shirlene Holmes) * Nasty Rumors and Final Remarks (Susan Miller) * Desdemona (Paula Vogel) * and more!

"Adventures in Lesbian Philosophy" explores diverse positive understandings of "lesbian philosophy." Tangren Alexander and Joyce Trebilcot critique the dualisms and methods of traditional Euro-American philosophy and offer creative experiments in wisdom-seeking; Bat-Ami Bar On and Lorena Leigh Saxe examine areas of contested sexual behaviors, such as pornography and sadomasochism; Elizabeth Deumer and Jacquelyn Zita take up the issue of constructing the meaning of "lesbian"; and Chris Cuomo, Barbara Houston, Ruthann Robson, Sarah Lucia Hoagland, and Kathleen Martindale and Martha Saunders discuss facets of lesbian community and responsibility. Special features include: Jacquelyn Zita's portrait of Jeffner Allen's creative lesbian philosophy, Mar'a Lugones' study of Gloria Anzald a's "Borderlands/La Frontera", Naomi Scheman's reflections on Jewish lesbian writing, and Ruth Ginzberg's interpretation of Audre Lorde's conception of eros. Editor Claudia Card has also included an up-to-date bibliography of lesbian philosophy and related works.

Lesbianism in literature has been dealt with rather indirectly in the past. Editors have led readers to the "artistry" of a work containing lesbianism, emphasizing instead the literary history and historical context of the work rather than the representations of lesbianism. The editor for Colette's "The Pure and the Impure, " for instance, affirms that Colette has a knowledge of a "strange sisterhood," but assures readers she has never strayed from the "normal."

In the groundbreaking "A Lure of Knowledge, " Judith Roof demonstrates that representations of lesbian sexuality occupy specific locations or positions in the arguments, subject matter, and rhetoric of Western European and American literary criticism. She examines the political context of representations: how lesbian sexuality is used as a signifier an why it appears when and where it does.

Roof argues that attempts to depict or explain lesbian sexuality spur anxieties about knowledge and identity. In reaction to and denial of these anxieties, lesbian sexuality is represented in film, literature, theory, and criticism as foreplay, as simulated heterosexuality, as erotic excess, as joking inauthenticity, as artful compromise, or as masculine mask in a specific repertoire of neutralization and evasion. Challenging the heterosexism of film theory and feminist theory, this book analyzes the rhetorical use of lesbian sexuality. Roof explores a range of discourses, from the woks of such authors as Anais Nin, Olga Broumas, Julia Kristeva, Jane Rule, Luce Iriguray, and Sigmund Freud, to films such as "Emmanuelle, Desert Hearts, Entre Nous, " and "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, " to professional tennis.

Violence Against Lesbians and Gay Men is the first book to reveal the shocking problem of anti-gay/lesbian violence. Beginning with an overview of the emergence of lesbian and gay neighbourhoods in major U.S. cities after World War II, Comstock describes how the increased visibility of lesbians and gay men was followed by physical attacks that were illegal but socially sanctioned. He presents results of his survey on present-day violence and then studies the perpetrators, using information supplied by survey participants as well as reports from the media, court records, and personal interviews. Finally, Comstock proposes a sociological explanation for the fact that adolescent males are the group most prone to violence against lesbians and gay men.

Lesbianism in literature has been dealt with rather indirectly in the past. Editors have led readers to the "artistry" of a work containing lesbianism, emphasizing instead the literary history and historical context of the work rather than the representations of lesbianism. The editor for Colette's "The Pure and the Impure, " for instance, affirms that Colette has a knowledge of a "strange sisterhood," but assures readers she has never strayed from the "normal."

In the groundbreaking "A Lure of Knowledge, " Judith Roof demonstrates that representations of lesbian sexuality occupy specific locations or positions in the arguments, subject matter, and rhetoric of Western European and American literary criticism. She examines the political context of representations: how lesbian sexuality is used as a signifier an why it appears when and where it does.

Roof argues that attempts to depict or explain lesbian sexuality spur anxieties about knowledge and identity. In reaction to and denial of these anxieties, lesbian sexuality is represented in film, literature, theory, and criticism as foreplay, as simulated heterosexuality, as erotic excess, as joking inauthenticity, as artful compromise, or as masculine mask in a specific repertoire of neutralization and evasion. Challenging the heterosexism of film theory and feminist theory, this book analyzes the rhetorical use of lesbian sexuality. Roof explores a range of discourses, from the woks of such authors as Anais Nin, Olga Broumas, Julia Kristeva, Jane Rule, Luce Iriguray, and Sigmund Freud, to films such as "Emmanuelle, Desert Hearts, Entre Nous, " and "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, " to professional tennis.

A taboo subject in many cultures, homosexuality has been traditionally repressed in Latin America, both as a way of life and as a subject for literature. Yet numerous writers have attempted to break the cultural silence surrounding homosexuality, using various strategies to overtly or covertly discuss lesbian and gay themes. In this study, David William Foster examines more than two dozen texts that deal with gay and lesbian topics, drawing from them significant insights into the relationship between homosexuality and society in different Latin American countries and time periods.

Foster's study includes works both sympathetic and antagonistic to homosexuality, showing the range of opinion on this topic. The preponderance of his examples come from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, countries with historically active gay communities, although he also includes material on other countries. Noteworthy among the authors covered are Reinaldo Arenas, Adolfo Caminha, Isaac Chocron, Jose Donoso, Sylvia Molloy, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Luis Zapata.

David William Foster is Regents' Professor of Spanish at Arizona State University.

In this though-provoking study of nineteenth-century America, J. Samaine Lockwood offers an important new interpretation of the literary movement known as American regionalism. Lockwood argues that regionalism in New England was part of a widespread woman-dominated effort to rewrite history. Lockwood demonstrates that New England regionalism was an intellectual endeavor that overlapped with colonial revivalism and included fiction and history writing, antique collecting, colonial home restoration, and photography. The cohort of writers and artists leading this movement included Sarah Orne Jewett, Alice Morse Earle, and C. Alice Baker, and their project was taken up by women of a younger generation, such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, who extended regionalism through the modernist moment. Lockwood draws on a diverse archive that includes fiction, material culture, collecting guides, and more. Showing how these women intellectuals aligned themselves with a powerful legacy of social and cultural dissent, Lockwood reveals that New England regionalism performed queer historical work, placing unmarried women and their myriad desires at the center of both regional and national history.

In this innovative and revealing study of midcentury American sex and culture, Amanda Littauer traces the origins of the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s. She argues that sexual liberation was much more than a reaction to 1950s repression because it largely involved the mainstreaming of a counterculture already on the rise among girls and young women decades earlier. From World War II-era "victory girls" to teen lesbians in the 1940s and 1950s, these nonconforming women and girls navigated and resisted intense social and interpersonal pressures to fit existing mores, using the upheavals of the era to pursue new sexual freedoms. Building on a new generation of research on postwar society, Littauer tells the history of diverse young women who stood at the center of major cultural change and helped transform a society bound by conservative sexual morality into one more open to individualism, plurality, and pleasure in modern sexual life.

In her forties, Erica Rand bought a pair of figure skates to vary her workout routine. Within a few years, the college professor was immersed in adult figure skating. Here, in short, incisive essays, she describes the pleasures to be found in the rink, as well as the exclusionary practices that make those pleasures less accessible to some than to others. Throughout the book, Rand situates herself as a queer femme, describing her mixed feelings about participating in a sport with heterosexual story lines and rigid standards for gender-appropriate costumes and moves. She chronicles her experiences competing in the Gay Games and at the annual U.S. Adult National Figure Skating Championship, or "Adult Nationals"; Aided by her comparative study of roller derby and women's hockey, including a brief attempt to play hockey herself, she addresses matters such as skate color conventions, judging systems, racial and sexual norms, transgender issues in sports, and the economics of athletic participation and risk taking. Mixing sharp critique with genuine appreciation and delight, Rand suggests ways to make figure skating more inclusive, while portraying the unlikely friendships facilitated by sports and the sheer elation of gliding on ice.

"Backward Glances" reveals that the passionate love one woman feels for another occupies a position of unsuspected centrality in contemporary Chinese mass cultures. By examining representations of erotic and romantic love between women in popular films, elite and pulp fiction, and television dramas, Fran Martin shows how youthful same-sex love is often framed as a universal, even ennobling, feminine experience. She argues that a temporal logic dominates depictions of female homoeroticism, and she traces that logic across texts produced and consumed in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan during the twentieth century and the early twenty-first. Attentive to both transnational cultural flows and local particularities, Martin shows how loving relations between women in mass culture are usually represented as past experiences. Adult protagonists revel in the repeated, mournful narration of their memories. Yet these portrayals do not simply or finally consign the same-sex loving woman to the past--they also cause her to reappear ceaselessly in the present.

As Martin explains, memorial schoolgirl love stories are popular throughout contemporary Chinese cultures. The same-sex attracted young woman appears in both openly homophobic and proudly queer-affirmative narratives, as well as in stories whose ideological valence is less immediately clear. Martin demonstrates that the stories, television programs, and films she analyzes are not idiosyncratic depictions of marginal figures, but manifestations of a broader, mainstream cultural preoccupation. Her investigation of representations of same-sex love between women sheds new light on contemporary Chinese understandings of sex, love, gender, marriage, and the cultural ordering of human life.

The Whole Lesbian Sex Book was the first-ever sex guide to offer information and encouragement for all women who desire women - lesbian, bisexual, butch, femme, androgynous, and transgender. First published in 1999, it's been lauded for its thoroughness, enthusiastic tone, and creative, nonjudgmental approach to lesbian sex in all its rich variety. (Library Journal lamented, "Why can't more heterosexual sex manuals be this good?") Now, five years later, sex educator Felice Newman has completely updated this classic guide. There is new information throughout, up-to-date research, fresh quotes from women who share their real-world experiences, a greatly expanded resource guide, new illustrations, and an entire new chapter on sex and partnership. Topics include: Where to find sex partners (and how to talk to your lovers about sex). Discovering your desires and fantasies. How to have all the orgasms you desire-G-spot orgasms, multiple orgasms, extended orgasms, and ejaculation. Why communication is the most important erotic skill you can offer your partners. How masturbation can improve your sex life. Expert how-to information on cunnilingus, anal sex, vaginal fisting, and other favourite lesbian sex techniques. How to choose vibrators, dildos, and harnesses, and get the most out of your sex toys. And much more.

A Stonewall Honor Book of the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table "Rare and Commonplace Flowers performs an invaluable service: unforgettably memorializing the remarkable Lota de Macedo Soares, and in the process filling in a crucial gap in Bishop's biography. This book honors a deeply moving love between two brilliant women: each highly public, a celebrity in her own nation; each deeply private, and happy (for a time) in the fragile heaven of their home."-The New York Times Book Review "As a portrait of Lota and Bishop in Brazil, Rare and Commonplace Flowers is a rare and illuminating book."-Women's Review of Books "Novelist Oliveira's engaging dual biography tells of Bishop and Soares's] 'long and sad' relationship. . . . This book offers a new perspective on the American poet, and the love story between these two women is undeniably intense and tragic. Recommended."-Library Journal Rare and Commonplace Flowers tells the story of two fascinating and controversial women. Elizabeth Bishop, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, sought artistic inspiration in Brazil. There she fell in love with Lota de Macedo Soares, a self-trained Brazilian architect. This dual biography-brilliantly researched, and written in a lively, novelistic style-follows their relationship from 1951 to 1967, the time when the two lived together in Brazil. A tale of two artists and two cultures, Rare and Commonplace Flowers offers unique perspectives on both women and their work. Carmen L. Oliveira provides an unparalleled level of detail and insight, due to both her familiarity with Brazil and her access to the country's artistic elite, many of whom had a direct connection with Bishop and Soares. Rare pictures of the two artists and their home bring this unique story to life. Carmen L. Oliveira is a Brazilian novelist. Neil K. Besner is a professor in the English department at the University of Winnipeg in Canada.

Examine the impact of disclosure on sons whose fathers are gay! In this book, Andrew Gottlieb, author of Out of the Twilight: Fathers of Gay Men Speak, explores yet another side of the impact of homosexuality on families. He now looks at how sons react to learning that their fathers are gay, allowing us to see, over time, how this has changed their family relationships and their own lives. Simply and elegantly written, this psychoanalytically oriented qualitative research study is accessible to both the beginner and the more advanced researcher and practitioner. It draws from a wide range of literary, popular, and psychological sources and includes an interview guide, a reference section, and an index. When someone discloses as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, it is not just an individual event. It is a family event. Based on estimates of married gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons, a spouse's coming out affects up to 2,000,000 couples. Yet, its impact has been largely ignored. Children's voices are the least often heard. . . . Little has been written about sons of fathers who came out during or after marriage. Data for studies that do exist most often draw from the fathers' point of view. . . . The significance of this study lies in its comprehensive, detailed picture of sons and gay fathers as they develop their separate self-images as well as the images of their son-father relationships over time. Painful, sensitive, often triumphant, the stories and [the author's] analysis of their thoughts, perceptions, and feelings afford a multidimensional, longitudinal viewing. Step by step, we follow the complicated dance of these sons and fathers as they develop and define their connection. from the Foreword by Amity Pierce Buxton, Author of The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families Sons Talk About Their Gay Fathers: Life Curves is a storybookan extended narrative moved along, but not overshadowed, by psychoanalytic theory. The Introduction briefly reviews more recent writings of the fathering experience as told by gay men themselves, setting the stage for: Father to Childa look at the father as seen through the ever-shifting eyes of his son at different phases of the life cycle The Quest for the Real Fatheran examination of sons' responses to their fathers' homosexuality as captured in film, fiction, nonfiction, television, and the psychological literature Methodologythe story of the research process, including sampling, the search for subjects, trustworthiness, the interview, bias, and data collection The Storiesan anthology of narratives the author constructed from the interview material, painting an intimate portrait of each individual son Findingsa categorical analysis Discussiona summary of all the preceding material cast in a developmental framework, highlighting implications for future research and clinical practice

How do you "hook" a Millennial student into caring about women's issues when feminism has been declared dead for decades? Written in an engaging style that promotes critical thinking, Women's Issues for a New Generation is intended for freshman- and sophomore-level undergraduates who have never heard of Mary Wollstonecraft or Anita Hill. The interdisciplinary text includes three major sections: women in the U.S., women from diverse groups (e.g., Native American and disabled), and women in the global arena. It also stresses the inclusion of men in topics such as body image, since "women's issues" are really issues that affect everyone. Other striking features included the contemporary debates (e.g., War on Women and Hillary Clinton's ambitions) and the current issues such as human trafficking. Textbooks on gender and women's studies often emphasize theory with the assumption that students already know about women's history, the pay gap, and other basic information; Women's Issues for a New Generation serves as a reader-friendly bridge to more advanced analysis of women and gender. Written by a social worker, this textbook applies social work values and the strength perspective to anyone who is fighting gender inequality.

The complete and groundbreaking "The L Word" is now out on DVD and this book makes the perfect companion, covering the series in its entirety. "Loving The L Word" picks up where Reading "The L Word: Outing Contemporary Television" (I.B. Tauris, 2006) left off. With new, updated chapters by many of the same television writers and scholars who contributed to the first volume, as well as essays by some newcomers, "Loving The L Word" explores the series' quantum contribution to the ongoing evolution of queer television. Whether you loved "The L Word", hated it, or loved to hate it, this book recognizes that the show transformed the post-Ellen LGBT television landscape, fulfilling a long-neglected, visceral desire for lesbian stories and images. In the process, it reshaped the communities that follow and talk about queer television and care about the narratives and characters that drive it. Including complete Character/Actor, Film/TV and Episode guides, the book also proceeds from the understanding that while "The L Word' ended in 2009 it manages to live on - in the lives of its fans, as well as in a new reality spin-off, "The Real L Word".

"The L Word" captured international attention when it first appeared on American screens in January 2004. The groundbreaking primetime drama from Showtime is about a group of lesbian and bisexual friends living and loving in Los Angeles, and challenges traditional notions of relationships, queer life styles, gender identities, race and ethnicity and sex and sexuality. "Reading the L Word" is the first book about this television phenomenon. With an introduction by Sarah Warn, the founder of premier lesbian entertainment website, AfterEllen.com, and a foreword by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, the collection brings together leading academics, feminist critics, scholars and award-winning journalists to discuss "The L Word". There is also a complete episode guide, as well as a series of interviews with the actors Erin Daniels, Katherine Moennig, and the writer, Guinevere Turner. Analytical, often humorous and sometimes provocative, "Reading the L Word" uncovers what makes this show both so compelling and groundbreaking.

Taking into account recent historic changes, this second edition updates the essays on the Supreme Court, same-sex marriage, the Right, and trans history. Authors of several other essays have taken the opportunity to add new material and references where warranted.

This volume brings together approaches to, and perspectives on, English, Spanish, and Galician language, literature, and culture from the fields of women's, gender, and queer studies. As its title reflects, the book adopts an inclusive attitude to the so-called "others" present in these fields. Since queer theory first appeared in academia, its influence has been notorious within both women's and genders. As such, it is vital to "queer" academia so that it re-conceptualises its foundations; indeed, the contributions here serve to alter the reader's consciousness of the terms "woman" and "gender".The first chapters concern the field of discourse analysis. Two discuss the written work of female scientists in the Late Modern Era and their role in society. Another deals with women's political discourse in South America. In the following section on literature, the contributors question the current heteronormative and androcentric ways of reading texts. The works on culture study contemporary genres, such as video games, video clips, and pieces of news, and take readers away from Europe. The Epilogue draws on the book's intersubjective spirit to propose a dialogue, among multiple disciplines and the people who practise them. As such, the volume reflects the eclectic nature of queer, women's, and gender studies, and their world-wide acceptance by the scholarly community.

This unique collection examines the experience of lesbians in Israel, providing insight into some of the institutions that have helped shape that experience. The book analyzes and interprets how culturally specific political, ideological, and social systems construct lesbian identities, experiences, and dilemmas, and it also explores "how a specific society is seen, understood, and interpreted from a lesbian prespective, written by scholars, professionals, and grassroots broad perspective of the lesbian experience in Israel.