ABSTRACT
To propose lesbian studies as an academic discipline is to open the floodgates to a deluge of doubts, queries and contradictions. What is the purpose of lesbian studies, who is it for and what are its disciplinary and pedagogic boundaries? Does the name ‘lesbian studies’ refer to scholarship in any field undertaken by lesbians, or to the study of lesbians and lesbian issues? Should students and/or teachers be lesbians? Whose interests should we prioritise, why and how? What place is there in lesbian studies for political struggles against lesbian oppression within and by the academy? What is the relationship of lesbian studies to the academy; a new subject area struggling for validation and acceptance, or a praxis intended to disrupt utterly and subvert the structures and assumptions of the academy itself? Is it possible for a distinct and autonomous area of scholarship to be predicated upon the existence within contemporary societies of a deviant and stigmatised sexual minority, a minority moreover whose very nature shifts fundamentally among temporal and geographical locations?
