ABSTRACT

How can being closeted or out affect the personal and professional life of a lesbian in academia? This volume, a collection of over thirty personal narratives, explores what it's like to be a lesbian working in a college or university setting. Along with the stories are in-depth analyses of the narratives by other academics. Issues such as race, class and age and how these factors distinguish each individual's place in the academy are examined. The contributors have written from a wide range of experiences--different degrees of outness, various academic disciplines, many geographic locations, and several types of academic settings.

part |190 pages

Personal Narratives

chapter 3|6 pages

Coming Out and Coming In

A Kind of Homecoming

chapter 5|8 pages

Out in the Heartland

Lesbians, Academics, and Iowa

chapter 12|6 pages

Is “Out” Now “In”?

A Letter to a First-Year Lesbian Professor

chapter 13|5 pages

Double Vision

Lesbian Twins in Academia

chapter 17|6 pages

Being Out in Academia

A Year of My Life in Enid, America

chapter 18|8 pages

Transforming “The Master's Tools”

Teaching and Studying Philosophy in Graduate School

chapter 19|7 pages

Of African Descent

A Three-fers Story

chapter 20|6 pages

This Is the Place

chapter 21|8 pages

Skirmishes in the Borderlands of Identity

Lesbians in Women's Studies

chapter 22|5 pages

Stray Sheep or Shepherd?

“Out” in the Florida Classroom

chapter 23|5 pages

Lesbians in Utah

Behind the Zion Curtain

chapter 24|6 pages

Beyond Silence

Life as Academics and a Lesbian Couple

chapter 28|7 pages

Consenting to Relations

The Personal Pleasures of “Power Disparity” in Lesbian Student-Teacher Partnerships

chapter 29|4 pages

My, How Times Have Changed … Or Have They?

A Quarter Century as a Lesbian Academic

part |18 pages

The Lesbian Experience

chapter 30|5 pages

Degrees of Freedom

chapter 31|11 pages

The Lesbian Experience

An Analysis

part |39 pages

Race, Class, Age

chapter 32|11 pages

Lesbians, Class, and Academia

Some Thoughts about Class-Based Identity and Difference

part |18 pages

Lesbian Studies, Queer Studies

chapter 36|6 pages

Queer Theory

The Monster That is Destroying Lesbianville