DOCSLIB.ORG

Reading Publics and Canon Formation in 20Th Century Us Fiction

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Reading Publics and Canon Formation in 20Th Century Us Fiction Copyright by Laura Knowles Wallace 2016 The Dissertation Committee for Laura Knowles Wallace Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: QUEER NOVELTY: READING PUBLICS AND CANON FORMATION IN 20TH CENTURY US FICTION Committee: Brian Bremen, Supervisor Chad Bennett Ann Cvetkovich Jennifer Wilks Janet Staiger QUEER NOVELTY: READING PUBLICS AND CANON FORMATION IN 20TH CENTURY US FICTION by Laura Knowles Wallace, BA, MA Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2016 Dedication For who else but my students, whose insistent presence served as persistent reminder of the stakes of this project? The many ways contemporary queer readers and critics have invested pre-Stonewall writing and images with romance or nostalgia or distaste all point to the funny communicability of shadow-relations and secret emotions across time, as if they acquire heft only in the long term, where the difficulty of the problems they want to solve (like historical isolation and suffering) can emerge in their full intractability. Christopher Nealon, Foundlings, 2001 I don’t have to wonder whose group I’m in today. Certainly the people who always think the public problem is theirs are gay. Eileen Myles, “To Hell,” Sorry, Tree, 2007 Acknowledgements Thank you to my committee (Brian Bremen, Jennifer Wilks, Chad Bennett, Ann Cvetkovich, and Janet Staiger) for your time, your enthusiasm, and your questions. Thank you to the other faculty members whose teaching and encouragement shaped this project, especially Hannah Wojciehowski, Eric Darnell Pritchard, Mia Carter, and Heather Houser. And thank you to Amy Stewart and Patricia Schaub for their behind-the-scenes assistance. Thank you to the instructors who shaped my undergraduate mind at Kenyon College, and sowed the seeds of this project: Judy Smith, Sara Clarke Kaplan, Laurie Finke, William Klein, Joseph Adler, and most of all, my thesis advisor, Ted Mason. Thank you to the students in my two semesters of teaching Gay and Lesbian Literature and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin in Fall 2014 and Fall 2015. You challenged me, humbled me, made me laugh lot, and kept me honest. Thank you to my domestic partner, Billy Callis, and our dog, Maggie, for your love and support, and for reminding me every day that there is more to life than grad school. Thank you to the friends, colleagues, and family who supported me during the writing process, especially Margaret Rieley, Rhiannon Goad, Emily Lederman, Meredith Coffey, Anne Stewart, my parents, and my sister, Grace. vi Thank you to the baristas at Thunderbird, Flightpath, Monkey Nest, La Tazza Fresca, Genuine Joe, and the Caffe Medici on the Drag. I truly could not have done this without you. Most of all, thank you to my writing companions: Jenn Shapland, Jenny Howell, and Kendall Gerdes, who are not only intellectual and creative fellow travelers, but dear friends. To describe my debt to you, I’ve got to crib from Sedgwick: “The greatest gift from all these people has been encouragement: not only in the sense of narcissistic supply, though there’s no substitute for that, but in the root sense—they gave courage. On the whole there isn’t a vast amount of courage available to those who feel they want it, in the fairly protected (though notionally left-leaning) academic milieux in which scholars have today, when we’re lucky, the privilege of doing sustained intellectual work. […] courage of even the most spectacular nature isn’t after all a spectacle, an arena with fixed sightlines, but instead a kind of floating permeable rialto of common lending, borrowing, extravagant indebtedness, and exchange” (x). vii Queer Novelty: Reading Publics and Canon Formation in 20th Century US Fiction Laura Knowles Wallace, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: Brian Bremen Queer Novelty investigates the reception histories of four mid-twentieth-century novels that are now read as LGBTQ+ fiction in order to demonstrate how popular reading contributes to and complicates the constitution of gay and lesbian literature as a category in the academy and how early- to mid-twentieth-century print networks provided a framework for today’s digitally networked LGBTQ+ culture. Queer Novelty tracks the reception histories of four novels: Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles, and Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. The archive for these histories encompasses scholarly analyses; reviews from newspapers and magazines; and online discussions on Goodreads and Amazon. Queer Novelty argues that reception studies demonstrate the force and effects of literary texts more fully than close reading, literary theory, or historical context alone, because reception study includes and accounts for shifts and variations in public reading practices and literary circulation. Queer Novelty brings together the investments of queer theory and affect theory, the methods of reception studies, and the writing practices of feminist criticism to demonstrate the possibilities of fiction reading in contemporary US culture. Chapter 1, “Thinking We Know Them, What Do We Know?” establishes the methodological framework for the project, focused on my theory of reading as public. Chapter 1 examines arguments for LGBTQ+ literature as a viii category, from Donald Webster Cory’s The Homosexual in America to discussions on Twitter and Tumblr in the 2010s. Chapter 2 reveals the feedback loop between popular and academic reception through the history of Nightwood, a canonical modernist text and a central text for queer female counterpublics. In Chapter 3, my analysis of Two Serious Ladies’ publication and reception histories is an investigation into the changing horizons of expectation that make yesterday’s odd novel today’s cult classic. In Chapter 4, I analyze the reception history of Giovanni’s Room and of Baldwin as a public intellectual to demonstrate how expectations about “gay literature” as a category have changed. Queer Novelty demonstrates that mid-20th century public cultures around books performed the groundwork necessary to keep them circulating, so that canons could be expanded when LGBTQ+ studies reached universities. ix Table of Contents List of Figures ....................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1: Thinking We Know Them, What Do We Know? : An Introduction ....1 My Archive .....................................................................................................4 Reading in Public, Feeling Public .................................................................10 Identity as Genre: A Brief History of “Gay and Lesbian Literature” ...........15 The Politics of Fiction: Diversity and Canon ...............................................24 Why Reception Studies: Feminist Expansions .............................................32 Why Reception History.................................................................................37 Why Queer Reception History ......................................................................43 Queer Novelty ...............................................................................................46 Chapter 2: “My History, Finally Invented”: Nightwood and Its Publics ..............49 Genres, Categories, and Paratexts .................................................................51 A Forgotten, Difficult Classic .......................................................................55 Modernist Difficulties and Early Reviews of Nightwood .............................59 Lesbians, Feminists, Queer Theory, and Djuna ............................................65 Conclusion: “One of Ours, but Not Our Own” .............................................74 Chapter 3: “The Dangers of Flirtation”: Giovanni’s Room and James Baldwin in Contemporary Culture ..................................................................................78 “The Dangers of Flirtation”: Giovanni’s Room in the 1950s .......................80 After Gay Liberation, Before Queer Theory .................................................95 Giovanni’s Room and the Academy ...........................................................101 Giovanni’s Room in (White Normative) Literary Publics ..........................107 James Baldwin and the Academy ...............................................................114 James Baldwin in Public in 2016 ................................................................118 Conclusion: Studying and Teaching Baldwin in the “Queer-Inflected Mood of the Black Lives Matter Era Now” ......................................................126 Chapter 4: “Visions of a Nutty America”: Legends of Two Serious Ladies .......131 1943 Reviews of Two Serious Ladies .........................................................138 x “Up from Underground”: Two Serious Ladies in the Sixties .....................141 Bowles’s Underground Reputation in the 21st Century ..............................149 “Only Feelings and Feminist Obsessions” : Jane Bowles and the Second Wave ............................................................................................................153 Lesbian Sensibilities, Lesbian Bookshelves ...............................................159 Two Serious Ladies and Internet Feminism ................................................164 Conclusion:
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Christina Stead and the Socialist Heritage
    CHRISTINA STEAD AND THE SOCIALIST HERITAGE CHRISTINA STEAD AND THE SOCIALIST HERITAGE Michael Ackland Cambria Australian Literature Series General Editor: Susan Lever 3¥, CAMBRIA PRESS Amherst, New York For Hans and Leo, Gunda and Olaf, Jochen, Jutta and Knut­ for fifty years of warmest trust and friendship: es hiitte kaum besser sein konnen. Copyright 2016 Cambria Press All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to [email protected], or mailed to: Cambria Press 100 Corporate Parkway, Suite 128 Amherst, New York 14226 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file. ISBN 978-1-60497-933-6 (alk. paper) Image of Christina Stead on cover "PORTRAIT OF CHRISTINA STEAD, 1940s?" reproduced by permission from the National Library of Australia. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .......... .... .. .. .. ............. ..... ..... ... ... .. .. ..... xi Chapter 1: Prologue . 1 Chapter 2: A Socialist Awakening ............. .................. ... ...... 21 Chapter 3: Seven Poor Men OfSydney and the Proletarian Novel ......... ... ................................................. 59 Chapter 4: The Politics of Stead's Early Fiction .. ..... ....... ......... .. 95 Chapter 5: Finance Capitalism and House ofAll Nations .
    [Show full text]
  • Marjorie Barnard: a Re-Examination of Her Life and Work
    Marjorie Barnard: a re-examination of her life and work June Owen A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of New South Wales Australia School of the Arts and Media Faculty of Arts and Social Science Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Australia's Global UNSWSYDNEY University Surname/Family Name OWEN Given Name/s June Valerie Abbreviation for degree as give in the University calendar PhD Faculty Arts and Social Sciences School School of the Arts and Media Thesis Title Marjorie Barnard: a re-examination of her life and work Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) A wealth of scholarly works were written about Marjorie Barnard following the acclaim greeting the republication, in 1973, of The Persimmon Tree. That same year Louise E Rorabacher wrote a book-length study - Marjorie Barnard and M Barnard Eldershaw, after agreeing not to write about Barnard's private life. This led to many studies of the pair's joint literary output and short biographical studies and much misinformation, from scholars beguiled into believing Barnard's stories which were often deliberately disseminated to protect the secrecy of the affair that dominated her life between 1934 and 1942. A re-examination of her life and work is now necessary because there have been huge misunderstandings about other aspects of Barnard's life, too. Her habit of telling imaginary stories denigrating her father, led to him being maligned by his daughter's interviewers. Marjorie's commonest accusation was of her father's meanness, starting with her student allowance, but if the changing value of money is taken into account, her allowance (for pocket money) was extremely generous compared to wages of the time.
    [Show full text]
  • GORE VIDAL the United States of Amnesia
    Amnesia Productions Presents GORE VIDAL The United States of Amnesia Film info: http://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/513a8382c07f5d4713000294-gore-vidal-the-united-sta U.S., 2013 89 minutes / Color / HD World Premiere - 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, Spotlight Section Screening: Thursday 4/18/2013 8:30pm - 1st Screening, AMC Loews Village 7 - 3 Friday 4/19/2013 12:15pm – P&I Screening, Chelsea Clearview Cinemas 6 Saturday 4/20/2013 2:30pm - 2nd Screening, AMC Loews Village 7 - 3 Friday 4/26/2013 5:30pm - 3rd Screening, Chelsea Clearview Cinemas 4 Publicity Contact Sales Contact Matt Johnstone Publicity Preferred Content Matt Johnstone Kevin Iwashina 323 938-7880 c. office +1 323 7829193 [email protected] mobile +1 310 993 7465 [email protected] LOG LINE Anchored by intimate, one-on-one interviews with the man himself, GORE VIDAL: THE UNITED STATS OF AMNESIA is a fascinating and wholly entertaining tribute to the iconic Gore Vidal. Commentary by those who knew him best—including filmmaker/nephew Burr Steers and the late Christopher Hitchens—blends with footage from Vidal’s legendary on-air career to remind us why he will forever stand as one of the most brilliant and fearless critics of our time. SYNOPSIS No twentieth-century figure has had a more profound effect on the worlds of literature, film, politics, historical debate, and the culture wars than Gore Vidal. Anchored by intimate one-on-one interviews with the man himself, Nicholas Wrathall’s new documentary is a fascinating and wholly entertaining portrait of the last lion of the age of American liberalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Christina Stead and the Synecdochic Scam: the Little Hotel
    Christina Stead and the Synecdochic Scam: The Little Hotel JUDITH KEGAN GARDINER, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO In this essay celebrating Christina Stead’s Centenary, I first review American Stead scholarship, as I’ve personally participated in it, before performing a close reading of The Little Hotel.1 My argument is that this wonderful short novel is underappreciated and that a formal approach can discern its shapely rhetorical structures. By drawing attention to Stead’s “synecdochic scams,” I highlight the way that she uses synecdoche, the literary figure of representing a whole through one of its parts, in order to portray the economic, sexual, and gender structures of her society. She critiques these structures as one colossal “scam” or scheme of exploitation with many manifestations. Then I break away from the formal restraints of New Critical explication to read The Little Hotel through the lenses of two contemporary theorists of masculinity, Australian sociologist Bob Connell and the late French post-structuralist theorist, Pierre Bourdieu. I I don’t know how I first heard of Stead, but in the mid-1970s she was one of the authors on lists of women writers all feminists should know. For example, The Man Who Loved Children, House of All Nations, The Puzzleheaded Girl and Miss Herbert are listed in Women and Literature: An Annotated Bibliography of Women Writers published in 1976 by the Women and Literature Collective of Cambridge, Massachusetts. This source cites only two other Australian women writers, Henry Handel Richardson and Shirley Hazzard. Accompanied by a flattering line drawing of a composed, middle-aged woman, it comments, “Stead herself presents an enigma to feminist readers: outspokenly scornful of the Women’s Liberation 13 14 JASAL 2 2003 Movement [.
    [Show full text]
  • Catalogue 143 ~ Holiday 2008 Contents
    Between the Covers - Rare Books, Inc. 112 Nicholson Rd (856) 456-8008 will be billed to meet their requirements. We accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and Gloucester City NJ 08030 Fax (856) 456-7675 PayPal. www.betweenthecovers.com [email protected] Domestic orders please include $5.00 postage for the first item, $2.00 for each item thereafter. Images are not to scale. All books are returnable within ten days if returned in Overseas orders will be sent airmail at cost (unless other arrange- the same condition as sent. Books may be reserved by telephone, fax, or email. ments are requested). All items insured. NJ residents please add 7% sales tax. All items subject to prior sale. Payment should accompany order if you are Members ABAA, ILAB. unknown to us. Customers known to us will be invoiced with payment due in 30 days. Payment schedule may be adjusted for larger purchases. Institutions Cover verse and design by Tom Bloom © 2008 Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc. Catalogue 143 ~ Holiday 2008 Contents: ................................................................Page Literature (General Fiction & Non-Fiction) ...........................1 Baseball ................................................................................72 African-Americana ...............................................................55 Photography & Illustration ..................................................75 Children’s Books ..................................................................59 Music ...................................................................................80
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright and Use of This Thesis This Thesis Must Be Used in Accordance with the Provisions of the Copyright Act 1968
    COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Director of Copyright Services sydney.edu.au/copyright Reading the City, Walking the Book: Mapping Sydney’s Fictional Topographies Susan M. King A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English August 2013 Preface I hereby declare that, except where indicated in the text and footnotes, this thesis contains only my own original work.
    [Show full text]
  • The Children's Chorus: Sibling Soundscapes in the Man Who
    This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Carson, Susan (2016) The children’s chorus: Sibling soundscapes in The Man Who Loved Chil- dren. Australian Literary Studies, 31(6), pp. 1-15. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/102337/ c Consult author(s) regarding copyright matters This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected] Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record (i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub- mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) can be identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear- ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. https://doi.org/10.20314/als.2963da99cd The Children’s Chorus: Sibling Soundscapes in The Man Who Loved Children Susan Carson Abstract The voices of children in The Man Who Loved Children allow Christina Stead to re-imagine her childhood and also to provide a platform for representing the struggles of children more broadly.
    [Show full text]
  • Visit to a Small Planet and the ―Fish out of Water‖ Comedy
    Audience Guide Written and compiled by Jack Marshall July 8–August 6, 2011 Theatre Two, Gunston Arts Center Theater you can afford to see— plays you can’t afford to miss! About The American Century Theater The American Century Theater was founded in 1994. We are a professional company dedicated to presenting great, important, but overlooked American plays of the twentieth century . what Henry Luce called ―the American Century.‖ The company’s mission is one of rediscovery, enlightenment, and perspective, not nostalgia or preservation. Americans must not lose the extraordinary vision and wisdom of past playwrights, nor can we afford to surrender our moorings to our shared cultural heritage. Our mission is also driven by a conviction that communities need theater, and theater needs audiences. To those ends, this company is committed to producing plays that challenge and move all Americans, of all ages, origins and points of view. In particular, we strive to create theatrical experiences that entire families can watch, enjoy, and discuss long afterward. These audience guides are part of our effort to enhance the appreciation of these works, so rich in history, content, and grist for debate. The American Century Theater is a 501(c)(3) professional nonprofit theater company dedicated to producing significant 20th Century American plays and musicals at risk of being forgotten. The American Century Theater is supported in part by Arlington County through the Cultural Affairs Division of the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources and the Arlington Commission for the Arts. This arts event is made possible in part by the Virginia Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as by many generous donors.
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright and Use of This Thesis This Thesis Must Be Used in Accordance with the Provisions of the Copyright Act 1968
    COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Director of Copyright Services sydney.edu.au/copyright Paul Bowles’ Aesthetics of Containment Surrealism, Music, the Short Story Sam V. H. Reese A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts The University of Sydney 2014 Acknowledgments 3 Introduction 5 Chapter 1: Bowles, Freedom and America Bowles and the Critics 13 Freedom and Liberal Criticism 26 Patterns
    [Show full text]
  • I Told You So: Gore Vidal Talks Politics Interviews with Jon Weiner OR
    I Told you So: Gore Vidal Talks Politics Interviews with Jon Weiner OR Books www.orbooks.com Q. Could you tell us about your formative political experiences? What was the process by which you became a radical? A. I don’t know how I did. I was brought up in an extremely conservative family. The British always want to know what class you belong to. I was asked that on the BBC. I said “I belong to the highest class there is: I’m a third generation celebrity. My grandfather, father, and I have all been on the cover of Time. That’s all there is. You can’t go any higher in America.” The greatest influence on me was my grandfather, Senator Thomas Pryor Gore. That’s his chair. Not from the Senate. From his office. He was blind from the age of ten. He would plot in that chair. He made Wilson president twice rocking away in that thing.! Q. He’s denounced by Teddy Roosevelt in Empire.! A. Yes. T.R. didn’t like anything about him. But T.P.G. was only 36, I think, when he came to the Senate. He was a Populist who finally joined the Democratic Party. They all did. He helped write the constitution of the state of Oklahoma, which is the only socialist state constitution. He was school of Bryan: anti-bank, anti- Eastern, anti-railroads, anti-war. Also anti-black and anti-Jew- what they now call nativist. But he was not a crude figure like Tom Watson or the sainted Huey.
    [Show full text]
  • What a Wonderful World: Notes on the Evolution of GLBTQ Literature for Young Adults
    Michael Cart What a Wonderful World: Notes on the Evolution of GLBTQ Literature for Young Adults n his Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, T. S. World War II had brought together “the largest Eliot offered three “permanent” reasons for reading: concentration of gay men ever found inside a single I(1) the acquisition of wisdom, (2) the enjoyment of American institution. Volunteer women who joined art, and (3) the pleasure of entertainment. the WAC and the WAVES experienced an even more When the reading in question is that of young prevalent lesbian culture” (78). adult literature—the quintessential literature of the It did not take long for art to catch up to what outsider—I would suggest there is a fourth reason: the Martin Duberman calls this “critical mass of con- lifesaving necessity of seeing one’s own face reflected sciousness” (76). Only three years after the end of the in the pages of a good book and the corollary comfort war, two important adult novels with gay themes that derives from the knowledge that one is not alone. appeared: Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman And yet one group of teenage outsiders—GLBTQ Capote and The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal. youth (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and They are significant for two reasons. First, they were questioning)—continues to be too nearly invisible. works of serious fiction by writers who would become Since the 1969 publication of John Donovan’s I’ll Get vital forces in American literature. Second, they were There. It Better Be Worth the Trip (Harper & Row), the issued by mainstream publishers—Random House and first young adult novel to deal with the issue of E.
    [Show full text]
  • A Living Memory LGBT History Timeline
    http://www.safeschoolscoalition.org/ A Living Memory LGBT History Timeline i Adapted from a document compiled by Loree Cook-Daniels of FORGE (For Ourselves: Reworking Gender Expression) and TAN (The Transgender Aging Network). See notes on page 8. 1920s 1920 “Gay” first used to refer to homosexuals in the publication Underground 1921 U.S. Naval report on entrapment of “perverts” within its ranks 1924 First commercially produced play with a lesbian theme, “God of Vengeance,” opens on Broadway; theatre owner and 12 cast members found guilty of obscenity (later overturned) Illinois charters the Society for Human Rights 1925 After a year of police raids, New York City’s roster of 20 gay and lesbian restaurants and “personality clubs” is reduced to 3 1926 The Hamilton Lodge Ball of Harlem attracts thousands of crossdressing men and women 1927 New York state legislature tries to ban gay-themed plays Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall published, all British copies destroyed as “obscene” 1930s 1930 Encyclopedia of Sexual Knowledge illustrates first “sex-change” procedures 1932 Man Into Woman, the Story of Lili Elbe’s Life, published 1933 Hitler bans gay and lesbian groups, burns the Institute of Sexual Science library 1934 Lillian Hellman’s “The Children’s Hour“ opens on Broadway to rave reviews 1935 “Successful” electric shock therapy treatment of homosexuality reported at American Psychological Association meeting 1937 Morris Kight organizes the Oscar Wilde Study Circle at Texas Christian University 1939 New York City “cleans up” in preparation for the World’s Fair, closing most of the city’s best-known gay bars 1940s 1940s Revealed that Holocaust victims include LGTs 1940 Courts rule New York State Liquor Authority can legally close down bars that serve “sex variants” 1941 “Transsexuality” first used in reference to homosexuality and bisexuality 1942 Switzerland decriminalizes adult homosexuality (men only; lesbianism wasn’t outlawed to begin with) 1943 U.S.
    [Show full text]