Description
Ken Plummer argues that autoethnography ‘brings the author firmly into the text with a heightened self-consciousness of the textual production' (2001: 398). Plummer further suggests that upon diving into autoethnographic writing, the lines between biography and fiction begin to blur. Historically, queer stories have been most accurately told by the queer community themselves. In the case of lesbian identity, ethno-historic studies like that of Kennedy and Davis (1993), queer methodologies like Halberstam’s (1998), and the lesbian narratives of Joan Nestle and Leslie Feinberg highlight that butch/femme writing often develops from or is expressed through this autoethnography and memoir. As Reid-Buckley argues, this helps to ‘carve out space for often-invisible experiences.' (2024: 50). R.B Mertz, for example, uses memoir as exploration of the relationship between queer identities and Catholicism in Burning Butch (2022). Focusing on American conceptions of these butch/femme, H.A Clarke’s Scapegracers (2020-2024) trilogy details the journey toward contemporary butch (and femme) lesbian gender through friends and coven-mates Sideways Pike and Daisy Brink. Using magic as their catalyst, both Sideways and Daisy explore and express their butch and femme genders, as both individual and complementary identities within their coven. This paper therefore explores some of the ways authors and readers connect with past lesbian lives and explore how these identities have morphed and sustained since the 1950s.| Period | 12 Dec 2025 |
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| Event title | Queer/ing Histories: Past and Present |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Belfast, United KingdomShow on map |