Exploring questions of sexuality and gender, this volume brings together ten core thinkers in the field of lesbian and gay studies and provides an essential introduction to this interdisciplinary field as well as the processes by which new—and queer—ideas are thought into being.
The collection begins with Joan Nestle, exploring the outsider status of lesbians through the complex life of a working-class black lesbian born in the South, who lived in New York and experienced the transition from complete marginalization to gay pride. It ends with Judith Butler, who speaks on broadening our concept of human rights in the aftermath of September 11. The collection also includes Edmund White on queer fiction and criticism, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick on the dialogics of love, John D'Emilio on gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, Esther Newton on being "butch", and lectures by Barbara Smith, Monique Wittig, Samuel R. Delany, and Cherrie Moraga. Alisa Solomon and Martin Duberman of CLAGS discuss the genesis of the lecture series and reflect on the evolution of lesbian and gay studies over its first ten years.