Lesbian and Gay Issues Translation Project

List of suggested books

November 1999

During the last decade the remarkable growth in gay and lesbian studies has greatly affected the movement. In response, Barry D. Adam has revised and updated his 1987 study. He addresses: the movement's recovery of momentum in the wake of the New Right campaigns and its gains in human rights and domestic partners legislation in several countries; the impact of AIDS on movement issues and strategies and the renewal of militant tactics through AIDS activism and Queer Nation; internal debates that continually shift the meanings composing homosexual, gay, lesbian, and queer identities and cultures; the proliferation of new movements in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa; and new developments in historical scholarship that are enriching our understanding of the history of same-sex bonding

Documents the current legal status of lesbians and gay men in 32 European countries, and includes a major survey of anti-gay discrimination in Britain. It records the campaign to win support for homosexual equality from the European Community and the Council of Europe, as well as the struggle of lesbians and gay men in the East European countries.

Providing strategies that can be adopted by educators, counselors, community activists and leaders, and those working in the lesbian and gay community, the contributors discuss role-playing exercises, suggestions for beginning a dialogue, methods of "coming out" to family members and coworkers, and outlines for workshops.

A concise handbook for activists and educators.

A valuable contribution to the gay and lesbian politics and the comparative social movement literatures. Rayside's carefully researched study will be of interest to teachers, students, and activists, due to its thoughtful comparative analysis of political access and the impact of the gay and lesbian movement in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. A salutary study of the necessity of legal change and of the hazards of the legislative journey.

Whether engendered by homophobia, heterosexism, or general prejudice, violence and discrimination continue to hound the gay community. Eleven contributions address topics such as the nature of anti-gay prejudice, homophobia in the courtroom, voter attitudes, minority stress, internalized homophobia, developmental implications, psychosocial and legal perspectives of gay parenting, and in conclusion, the critical need for psychology and social science to confront homophobia.

Presenting political, historical, legal, literary and psychological documents which trace the evolution of the lesbian and gay movement, this edited volume includes such diverse documents as organization pamphlets, essays, polemics, speeches, newspaper and journal articles, and academic papers. Uses key primary sources to construct a record of the issues, struggles, and challenges surrounding the politics of homosexuality, from the beginning of the movement in the late 19th century, through to the AIDS epidemic.

Listed by American Bookseller as "among the most important gay and lesbian books that should be represented in any general bookstore," Borhek's original edition of this book (1983) has also been praised as "sound, sympathetic, and helpful" (St. Luke's Journal of Theology). In this thorough revision, Borhek brings an additional decade of personal experience to bear on the subject of coming out.

Covers eleven principal issues that gays and lesbians may face during their lifetimes, and provides ways to begin improving the lives of gays and lesbians in these areas: parenting, coming out processes of lesbians, gay men's self-image, adolescence as a homosexual, parental guidance of homosexual children, eating disorders, aging, dual needs of ethnic homosexuals, need and use of support groups, spirituality, and partners of adult survivors of child sexual abuse.

Drawing on his own odyssey from denial to acceptance, and the experiences of his patients, a psychiatrist discusses the psychological evolution of gay men from private feelings to open discussion of gay identity. An excellent book on the coming out process.

Examines how and why shame becomes internalised, offers strategies for healing, how to enhance self-esteem, build identity, and develop intimacy for gay men and lesbians.

The various authors examine issues faced by lesbians, gay men and bisexuals from conception to death. A resource for students, educators, researchers and therapists.

A terrible sin, a gift from the gods, a mental illness, a natural human variation - throughout history, people have defined homosexuality in all of these ways. Since the word “homosexual” was coined in 1869, scholars and scientists in a variety of fields have sought to understand same-sex intimacy. Synthesizing the latest research in biology, psychology, history and anthropology, Mondimore first explains how homosexuality has been understood and defined from ancient times to the present. He then reviews current biological research into the nature of sexual orientation and examines recent scientific findings on the role of heredity and hormones. Mondimore also discusses our current understanding of bisexuality and transgender phenomena. And he focuses on the process by which individuals come to identify themselves as homosexual, the sensitivity of children to their own sexual identities, and the psychological effects of the stigmatization of homosexuality on adolescents. Finally, Mondimore analyzes antihomosexual discrimination, from the arrest of Oscar Wilde to the Nazi persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust.

A practical guide for providing health and mental health care to lesbian and gay youth and young adults. Although it focuses on adolescents, the information is relevant for any age group. In addition to specific guidelines for care and for approaching such sensitive topics as sexual behavior, abuse, and suicide, the book includes a comprehensive review of the literature and up-to-date information for care providers, researchers, educators, and general readers alike.

The first British guide for counselors and therapists working with people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual. It provides a much-needed overview of lesbian, gay and bisexual psychology. Pink Therapy proposes a model of gay affirmative therapy, which challenges the prevailing pathologizing models.

Using research studies and personal narratives, Vargo discusses the stages of the coming-out process and offers advice to gay men in the process of coming out, and to friends, and colleagues who may be affected by such revelations. He also discusses involuntary "outing," disclosure in the era of AIDS, and other topics.

The ancient Greeks have for centuries been regarded as Western Culture's cultural and intellectual ancestors. But throughout generations of education in ancient Greek philosophy, drama, poetry, politics, and art, a crucial aspect of the ancient Greek world has come to be overlooked, avoided, distorted, or denied--the role of the homosexual relationship. K.J. Dover's scholarly, thorough, and fair study is a landmark in the opening of the issue to the public.

A work of cultural history which draws on a broad base of sources, from private correspondence to pornography, to explore five hundred years of friendship and love between women, and throw new light on shifting theories of female sexuality and the changing status of women over the centuries.

“Halperin's book carries out, with careful scholarly arguments and a judicious, wide-ranging use of the evidence, the project Michel Foucault mapped out in the second volume of his History of Sexuality; to shed light on the historical contingency and the non-naturalness of our current categories of sexual experience by confronting them with a detailed picture of a very different organization of sexual desire and activity. Clear and incisive, these essays are probably the best available introduction for the general reader to the issues raised by Foucault's work.” – Martha Nussbaum, Times Literary Supplement

By exploring homosexuality in a wide range of times and places, the 30 essays in this ground-breaking anthology suggest that definitions of “normal” sexuality differ widely from one culture to the next. Contributions deal with women who passed as men in 19th-century America, Russia's gay literature and subculture since the 1917 revolution, “mine marriages” in South Africa's gold mines, and San Francisco's gay community. There are essays on lesbian sexuality in medieval Europe, among American Indian tribes, in avant-garde Paris. The contributors explore the complex interplay between same-sex relationships, definitions of self and societal attitudes toward homosexuality.

This book of documents traces the anti-homosexual policies of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and the consequences of these policies. Included are documents dealing with gay men in concentration camps. Grau contributes a seven-page essay on the subject and historian Claudia Schoppmann writes an eight-page essay on "The Position of Lesbian Women in the Nazi Period." (Published in English in 1997 as The Hidden Holocaust? Gay and lesbian persecution in Germany 1933-1945.)

A classic collection of autobiographical writings by some of the leading figures of the early lesbian and gay movement in America, in the days before the status of gay people received widespread attention in the media.

A history of homosexuality around the world since 1869, drawing on the experience of unknown people as well as celebrities such as Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, James Baldwin and Martina Navratilova.

To be manly, one must be brave, daring, cool under fire, physically strong, honorable, honest, and courteous. Even today, many men accept these qualities as defining masculinity. But how did our idea of manliness evolve? This first historical account of the masculine stereotype in modern Western culture shows how it came to be, and how, today, the manly image is being challenged as never before.

Cultural historian Rictor Norton critiques the widespread doctrine that 'the homosexual' is a distinctive new species invented in the modern age. With careful reasoning supported by wide-ranging scholarship, Norton attacks the social constructionist theories that currently dominate lesbian and gay studies, and argues the case that queers are a part of a centuries-old history, possessing a unified historical, cultural identity, thus unashamedly siting himself within the 'essentialist' camp.

Rupp presents a synthesis of the work of many historians who have investigated same-sex sexuality. She provides brief accounts of the lives of people throughout American history who in some way demonstrated same-sex desire, from early Native Americans to Walt Whitman and through the aftermath of the Stonewall riot. She offers explanation and analysis of how these people and their experiences reveal prevailing attitudes toward homosexuality in the times and places they lived. While most books on gay and lesbian history tend to be scholarly, at times informed by postmodern analysis that can make them challenging for the general reader, Rupp’s survey is, by contrast, highly accessible.

Claudia Schoppmann offers the first in-depth account of lesbians living in Germany during the Third Reich. Through a series of interviews, Schoppmann recounts the lives of perpetrators, bystanders, and victims: women who fought against Hitler's regime, others who married gay men to ward off suspicion, and one who remained active despite fairly clear pronouncements of her sexuality. Schoppmann's work opens new doors for students of lesbian and gay history, women's studies, and modern German and European history. (Published in English by Columbia University Press as Days of Masquerade: Life Stories of Lesbians during the Third Reich.)

These essays explore diverse positive understandings of "lesbian philosophy," from contested sexual behaviors such as pornography and sadomasochism to the meaning of "lesbianism." Editor Claudia Card has also included an up-to-date bibliography of lesbian philosophy and related works.

Parnok (1885-1933) was the only avowed lesbian poet during the “silver age” of Russian poetry (1893-1917). She published in her lifetime, overcoming obstacles thrown in her path by a sexist and homophobic society. Burgin's study is shaped not so much by historical record (which contains many gaps) as by the poetry itself.

Gay plays on Broadway, Hollywood movies with gay themes, gay and lesbian studies at universities, openly gay columnists and even editors at national mainstream publications, political leaders speaking in favor of gay rights: it seems that straight American 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, Bersani argues for a bolder presentation what it means to be gay.

“[This book is] a welcome addition to the small philosophical literature on lesbian and gay life, particularly because of its breadth and careful philosophical analysis. . . . In addition to fruitfully using and critiquing literature central to lesbian-feminist philosophy, Claudia Card applies Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblances to articulate multiple genealogies of lesbian identity (Amazonian, Sapphic, and passionate friendships), develops Aristotle's analysis of 'true' friendship, critiques Nietzsche's account of the origin of slave morality, . . . and relies on Rawls's concept of institutions to ask which institutions support or undermine lesbian life. Her philosophical analyses of both battering and homophobia are particularly insightful.” -- Cheshire Calhoun, Ethics

383 pages. ISBN: 0226141365

This book discusses how succeeding writers have understood and appropriated Sappho's ambiguity. DeJean considers translations of the Greek poet and fictional versions of Sappho as heterosexual, homosexual, virgin, and whore.

Drawing on Freudian texts, feminist debates and Lacanian thought, de Lauretis contends that psychoanalysis can be used creatively to understand lesbian sexuality. To this end, she adopts a strategy of reversal characteristic of contemporary feminist theory: rather than rejecting Freud's idea of perversion, Ms. de Lauretis reappropriates it, so that ‘perverse’ means notpathological but rather nonheterosexual.

“The author sees the idea of perversion as central to ‘a fierce dialectic between domination and deviation, law and desire, transgression and conformity; a dialectic working through repression, demonizing, displacement, and struggle’. . . . He examines opposing concepts of homosexual identity: the essentialist versus the constructionist, . . . exemplified in Gide and Wilde; and differing ideas of 'perversion' in two prime influences in Christian theology and in psychology, Augustine and Freud.” --Times Literary Supplement

Hubert Fichte was an active presence in contemporary German letters. His overarching concerns are with expression or repression sexualities by the producers and the receivers of marginalized, often reviled texts and textual scenes in Western European literature. (A selection of Fichte’s writing is also available in English as The Gay Critic. The University of Michigan Press, 1996. ISBN 0-472-08340-6)

Jagose provides a concise explanation of queer theory, tracing it as part of a history of same-sex love over the last century, from mid-century homophile movements to gay liberation, the women's movement and lesbian feminism, to the re-appropriation of the term "queer". Interrogating the arguments of supporters and opponents of queer theory, Jagose suggests that its strength lies in its questioning of the very idea of sexual identities. Blending insights from prominent queer theorists such as Judith Butler and David Halperin, Jagose argues that queer theory's challenge is to create new ways of thinking, not only about fixed sexual identities such as heterosexual and homosexual, but also about other supposedly essential notions such as "sexuality" and "gender" and even "man" and "woman".

In an original contribution to contemporary social and political thought, Kaplan argues that democratic equality entails for all citizens, of whatever sexual persuasion or orientation, the ability to participate on the same terms as others in collectively shaping the conditions of common life. Convincingly argues that equality for lesbian and gay citizens is part of the unfinished business of modern democracy. Essential reading for students of politics, law and philosophy.

Since the late 1980s, queer studies and theory have become vital to the intellectual life of the U.S. This has been, to no small degree, due to the popularity of Sedgwick’s critically acclaimed Epistemology of the Closet. Working from classic texts of European and American writers – including Herman Melville, Henry James, Marcel Proust, and Oscar Wilde—Sedgwick delineates a historical moment in which sexual identity became as important a demarcation of personhood as gender had been for centuries.

A comprehensive multi-disciplinary anthology of critical work in lesbian and gay studies. Bringing together 42 essays, this collection provides an introduction to the contemporary state of lesbian/gay studies, illustrating the range, scope, diversity, appeal, and power of the work currently being done in the field. Addresses topics such as butch-fem roles, the cultural construction of gender, lesbian separatism, feminist theory, AIDS, safe-sex education, colonialism, S/M, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, children's books, black nationalism, popular films, Susan Sontag, the closet, homophobia, Freud, Sappho, the media, the "hijras" of India, Robert Mapplethorpe, and the politics of representation. It also contains an extensive bibliographical essay which should provide readers with an guide to further reading.

Moore examines the limitations of the theoretical languages used by anthropologists and others to write about sex, gender, and sexuality. She reviews recent feminist debates on the body and the notion of the non-universal human subject, and pursues a series of related themes, including the links between gender, identity, and violence.

This anthology seeks to explore the experiences of those people in whom two kinds of identity meet: being both lesbian and Jewish. The revised 1989 edition comprises 35 entries, including nine that are new and several that have been updated since the 1^st edition (1989).

Whereas feminist theory divides between two strategies, one based on equality (or sameness) and the other on difference, this book proposes a new approach: specificity. We are neither simply "the same as" or "different from" one another, Shane Phelan observes, and any theory that assumes as much is mistaken and dangerous. Here Phelan offers an alternative, a "democratic identity politics," which recognizes the specifics of human experience and at the same time accounts for alliances and communities. Getting specific, she suggests, allows us to discover the networks of meaning and power that shape our lives and to discern and respect genuine individuality.

A classic collection of important early prose writings by one of America's foremost poets and feminist theorists. On Lies, Secrets, and Silence is an extraordinary sort of travel diary, documenting Rich's journeys to the frontier and into the interior. It traces the development of one individual consciousness, 'playing over such issues as motherhood, racism, history, poetry, the uses of scholarship, the politics of language.' Rich has written a headnote for each essay, briefly discussing the circumstances of its writing.

Approximately 600 articles arranged in alphabetical format attempt to "encircle" Queerness, focusing primarily on the accomplishments of Western, self-identified gays and lesbians in the 1970s-1990s, with forays into the pre-Stonewall past. While the authors are for the most part objective and precise, they are strongest on biographies and organizational histories (James Baldwin and Lesbian Avengers) and lose focus and objectivity on more nebulous entries (Separatism and Sex). The two-column page format, generous font, and plentiful photographs combine with a simple writing style to make the work accessible and easy to read. Select bibliographic citations follow most entries, and a separate, 73-page chronology details Queer events from circa 12,000 B.C. The chronology is cross-referenced with the alphabetical text and included in the 32-page index, greatly enhancing its use.