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Composing Historical Activism: Anecdotes, Archives, and Multimodality in Rhetorics of Lesbian History

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COMPOSING HISTORICAL ACTIVISM: ANECDOTES, ARCHIVES, AND MULTIMODALITY IN RHETORICS OF LESBIAN HISTORY by Jean Bessette B.A., Seattle University, 2006 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Jean Bessette It was defended on June 21, 2013 and approved by Dissertation Advisors: Jessica Enoch, Associate Professor, University of Maryland And Jean Ferguson Carr, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh And David Bartholomae, Professor, University of Pittsburgh Annette Vee, Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh Lester C. Olson, Professor, University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright © by Jean Bessette 2013 A version of Chapter 2 was previously published as "An Archive of Anecdotes: Raising Lesbian Consciousness after the Daughters of Bilitis" in Rhetoric Society Quarterly 43.1. iii COMPOSING HISTORICAL ACTIVISM: ANECDOTES, ARCHIVES, AND MULTIMODALITY IN RHETORICS OF LESBIAN HISTORY Jean Bessette, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2013 This dissertation examines the unique rhetorics and technologies lesbian collectives have employed to compose and wield their histories. Focusing on the Daughters of Bilitis (1955- 70), the Lesbian Herstory Archives (1974-), and filmic historiographers such as Barbara Hammer and Cheryl Dunye (1994-), I investigate how these historical activists have deconstructed dominant accounts that underpin conceptions of lesbian deviance and replaced them with collective histories of their own making. I argue that these collective rhetors composed radical versions of a queer past that challenged present oppressions, cohered provisional communities, and disrupted static consolidations of lesbian identity. Examining a diverse collection of primary sources from newsletters to documentary films, I assay alphabetic, material, and multimodal rhetorical strategies for composing lesbian history, including “anecdotal clustering” of experience in print pamphlets and books; radical classification schemas in material archives; and the use of multimodal technologies to reframe and even fabricate archival evidence in experimental documentary films. The study’s three core chapters rely upon archival and primary research, complimented by rhetorical, multimodal, and queer theory, as I analyze the cultural contexts, rhetorics, and technologies employed by the collectives to compose their histories. Because I attend to the effects of these histories on each collective rhetor’s iv imagined constituency, my dissertation makes clear the rhetorical significance of historical production and the consequences of composing history on gendered and sexual identifications. v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 COMPOSING HISTORICAL ACTIVISM: COLLECTIVE RHETORIC AND IDENTIFICATION IN THE ARCHIVES OF LESBIAN HISTORY ................................................ 1 1.1 DEFINING KEY TERMS: RHETORIC AND IDENTIFICATION IN HISTORICAL ACTIVISM ...................................................................................................... 9 1.2 HISTORICAL ACTIVISM IN RHETORICAL AND QUEER STUDIES .............. 15 1.2.1 Queer Rhetorical Studies ......................................................................... 15 1.2.2 Feminist Historiography in Rhetorical Studies .................................. 18 1.2.3 Queer Historiographic Theory Outside Rhetorical Studies ............. 22 1.2.4 The Media of History: Technologies and Rhetoric ............................ 26 1.3 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 30 2.0 THE DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS ARCHIVE: CLEARING HISTORICAL SPACE FOR CLUSTERED ANECDOTES ......................................................................................................... 32 2.1 THE DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS IN CONTEXT: FROM MOBILIZATION TO ARCHIVIZATION ................................................................................................................ 35 2.2 ARCHIVAL LESSONS: LEARNING FROM ANN ALDRICH AND THE LADDER … ......................................................................................................................... 39 2.3 CLEARING HISTORICAL SPACE: REVISING HISTORIES OF PATHOLOGY AND CRIMINALITY ............................................................................................................ 44 vi 2.4 RAISING CONSCIOUSNESS FROM A QUEER ARCHIVE OF ANECDOTES ... 49 2.5 FORGING COMMUNITY FROM ANECDOTES OF FAILED RESEARCH AND UNREQUITED LOVE .......................................................................................................... 54 2.5.1 Failed Research as an Inventional and Communal Resource .......... 55 2.5.2 Isolation, Rejection, and Unrequited Love as a Collective Problem 58 2.5.3 Forging Self-acceptance and Middle-class Collectivity across Racial, National, and Regional Lines .................................................................................. 63 2.6 THE LIMITS OF THE LESBIAN/WOMAN ARCHIVE...................................... 68 2.7 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 72 3.0 THE LESBIAN HERSTORY ARCHIVES: ARCHIVING DIFFERENTLY THROUGH SUBVERSIVE CLASSIFICATION ................................................................................................ 76 3.1 THE ARCHIVE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF POWER.......................................... 81 3.1.1 Searching for Queer History in the Archive ......................................... 84 3.1.2 The Epistemology of LHA’s Closets: Radical Openness and Fierce Guardedness .............................................................................................................. 88 3.2 SUBVERSIVE CLASSIFICATION: ARCHIVISTS, ACCORDANCE, ACCESS, ACQUISITIONS, AND ARRANGEMENT ........................................................................... 91 3.2.1 Archivettes and Accordance of Funding: the Ethos of Separatism.. 91 3.2.2 Access: Demarcating Audience Through Material Space and Donor Proviso.. ...................................................................................................................... 95 3.2.3 Acquisitions: the Rhetorical Composition of Lesbian History ....... 102 3.2.4 Arrangement: “Associative Discovery,” Materiality, and Repetition .. ..................................................................................................................... 111 vii 3.2.4.1 Metaphor and Materiality ............................................................ 113 3.2.4.2 Metonymy and Repetition ............................................................ 121 3.3 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................... 126 4.0 MULTI-MEDIATING LESBIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY: DOCUMENTARY COMPOSITIONS OF LESBIAN PASTS ..................................................................................... 130 4.1 CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND: QUEER RESISTANCE TO NEOLIBERAL HISTORICISM ................................................................................................................... 136 4.1.1 Filmmakers and Festivals ..................................................................... 137 4.2 “GAINSAYING” CLASSIFICATION: WHEN HISTORICAL FIGURES RESIST IDENTITY CATEGORIES.................................................................................................. 140 4.3 SHIFTING ALLEGIANCES AND RECONFIGURED MEMORY ...................... 150 4.4 “IMAGING” TABOOS: EXPOSING EXCLUSIONS WITHIN LESBIAN COMMUNITIES ................................................................................................................. 157 4.5 FICTITIOUS ARCHIVES: MANIPULATING AND INVENTING THE QUEER ARCHIVE.. .......................................................................................................................... 162 4.5.1 Manipulating History Lessons: Speaking over Historical Subjects 163 4.5.2 Honest Deceptions in The Watermelon Woman: Inventing the Archive ..................................................................................................................... 167 4.6 CAMP HISTORIOGRAPHY, OR PERFORMING ARCHIVAL AMBIVALENCE .. .. ......................................................................................................................... 172 4.7 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................... 178 5.0 PARTING THOUGHTS ON THE PAST AND FUTURE OF HISTORICAL ACTIVISM … ................................................................................................................................ 179 viii 5.1 FILMIC REMEDIATION OF THE LESBIAN HERSTORY ARCHIVES ........... 183 5.2 EARLIER FORMS OF REMEDIATION ............................................................ 186 5.3 DIGITAL ARCHIVIZATION AND THE FUTURE OF HISTORICAL ACTIVISM … ....................................................................................................................... 190 5.3.1 The “It Gets Better” Archive: Collecting Videos of the Recent Past ... ..................................................................................................................... 191 5.3.2 The Rainbow Family Tree: Networking Communication from Video Archives ...................................................................................................................
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