Sapphists and Sexologists: Histories of Sexualities Volume II, contributes to the ever evolving debates on lesbian lives and histories. This volume includes a mixture of engaging essays from established and young scholars and opens with a succinct, incisive and often comical take on lesbian lives, relationships and cats, by internationally esteemed scholar Sally R. Munt. Unique essays include the personal reflections on writing historical fiction by the celebrated author Emma Donoghue and an exclusive conversational record from Joan Nestle on her life, loves and activism. The scope of this collection is truly international; a collaborative work of scholars from many different disciplines, universities and countries. The central theme of the book continues from the first volume Tribades, Tommies and Transgressives: Histories of Sexualities, in its questioning of established histories of sexualities, methodologies and theoretical practices.

From The Other Boleyn Girl to Fingersmith , this collection explores the popularity of female-centred historical novels in recent years. It asks how these representations are influenced by contemporary gender politics, and whether they can be seen as part of a wider feminist project to recover women's history.

The introduction of legislative structures for same-sex relationships provides a new lens for grappling with the politics of sexuality in schools and society. The emergence of civil partnership and same-sex marriage in Ireland brings to the fore international debates around public intimacy, religion in the public sphere, secularism and the politics of sexuality equality. Building on queer, feminist and affect theory in innovative ways, this book offers insight into the everyday negotiations of LGBT-Q teachers as they operate between and across the intersecting fields of education, religion and LGBT-Q politics. Neary illustrates the complexity of negotiating personal and professional identities for LGBT-Q teachers.

Queering Desire explores, with unprecedented interdisciplinary scope, contemporary configurations of lesbian, bi, queer women’s, and non-binary people’s experiences of identity and desire. Taking an intersectional feminist and trans-inclusive approach, and incorporating new and established identities such as non-binary, masculine of centre (MOC), butch, and femme, this collection examines how the changing landscape for gender and sexual identities impacts on queer culture in productive and transformative ways. Within queer studies, explorations of desire, longing, and eroticism have often neglected AFAB, transfeminine, and non-binary people’s experiences. Through 25 newly commissioned chapters, a diverse range of authors, from early career researchers to established scholars, stage conversations at the cutting edge of sexuality studies. Queering Desire advances our understanding of contemporary lesbian and queer desire from an inclusive perspective that is supportive of trans and non-binary identities. This innovative interdisciplinary collection is an excellent resource for scholars, undergraduate, and postgraduate students interested in gender, sexuality, and identity across a range of fields, such as queer studies, feminist theory, anthropology, media studies, sociology, psychology, history, and social theory. In foregrounding female and non-binary experiences, this book constitutes a timely intervention.

The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature examines literary representations of lesbian sexuality, identities, and communities, from the medieval period to the present. In addition to providing a helpful orientation to key literary-historical periods, critical concepts, theoretical debates and literary genres, this Companion considers the work of such well-known authors as Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Alison Bechdel and Sarah Waters. Written by a host of leading critics and covering subjects as diverse as lesbian desire in the long eighteenth century and same-sex love in a postcolonial context, this Companion delivers insight into the variety of traditions that have shaped the present landscape of lesbian literature.

The Routledge Companion to Literature and Feminism brings unique literary, critical, and historical perspectives to the relationship between women’s writing and women’s rights in British contexts from the late eighteenth century to the present. Thematically organised around five central concepts—Rights, Networks, Bodies, Production, and Activism—the Companion tracks vital questions and debates, offering fresh perspectives on changing priorities and enduring continuities in relation to women’s ongoing struggle for liberty and equality. This groundbreaking collection brings into focus the historical and cultural conditions which have shaped the formation of British literary feminisms, including the legacies of slavery, colonialism, and Empire. From the political novel of the 1790s to early twentieth-century suffrage theatre and contemporary ecofeminism, and from the mid-Victorian antislavery movement to anti-fascist activism in the 1930s and working-class women’s writing groups in the 1980s, this book testifies to the diverse and dynamic character of the relationship between literature and feminism. Featuring contributions from leading feminist scholars, the Companion offers new insights into the crucial role played by women’s literary production in the evolving history of women’s rights discourses, feminist activism, and movements for gender equality. It will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of women’s writing, British literature, cultural history, and gender and feminist studies.

This book explores the ways in which changing views on gender and the place of women in society during the latter half of the twentieth century affected women’s participation and standing within British Paganism. More specifically, it examines how British Wiccans and Wiccan-derived Pagans reacted to the rise of 'second-wave' feminism and the Women's Liberation Movement in the UK – with a special emphasis on the reception of feminist theory hailing from the USA – and to the emergence of feminist branches of Witchcraft and Goddess Spirituality during the 1970s and 1980s. The book draws on primary sources never before analyzed in an academic context and makes a valuable contribution to the growing body of knowledge on gender and religion during the twentieth century, as very little research has been conducted on the relations between the history of modern Paganism and that of second-wave feminism in the UK.