ABSTRACT

Neither women's studies nor lesbian and gay studies offers an adequate theoretical or political base for lesbian scholarship. Lesbian Studies: Setting and Agenda aim to promote lesbian studies as an academic and political approach to both gender and the erotic, and to clarify the damaging influence of heterosexism across a range of disciplines.
Drawing on feminism and queer theory, Tamsin Wilton argues that `lesbian' is a theoretical position which must be widely available in order to challenge the dominance of the heterosexual perspective. Engaging with theoretical and political debates, the book moves beyond its role of setting an agenda for lesbian studies into a wider role as resource and catalysts for anyone interested in gender and the erotic.

chapter |9 pages

Introduction

Lesbian what?

chapter 1|19 pages

Deviant pedagogies

The nature of lesbian studies

chapter 2|21 pages

The nature of the beast

What is a lesbian?

chapter 3|16 pages

Invisible and erased

Uses and abuses of history

chapter 4|21 pages

What is this thing called?

Models of sexual identity

chapter 5|23 pages

Orthodoxy within disobedience:

Lesbians and feminists

chapter 6|28 pages

Stories and storytellers

Lesbian literary studies

chapter 7|25 pages

Lesbians studying culture

Studying lesbian culture

chapter 8|18 pages

The social lesbian

chapter 9|24 pages

Subject to control

Lesbians and the state