Brown Bag Lecture: “Southern Lesbian-Feminist Herstory”

This co-sponsored Southern Studies/Gender Studies brown bag features Sinister Wisdom general editor Julie Enszer, along with guest editors Rose Norman and Merrill Mushroom, discussing the special issue Southern Lesbian-Feminist Herstory, 1968-1994, along with forthcoming issues on Landdykes and Lesbian-Feminist Culture. The Southern Herstory issue features oral histories from around the South, documenting a now forgotten feminist movement which pioneered consciousness-raising (in Florida) and the back-to-the-land movement.

Sinister Wisdom is the oldest lesbian-feminist journal in the United States. Founded in 1975 by Catherine Nicholson and Harriet Desmonies in Charlotte, North Carolina, the journal has continued to be a leading voice of lesbian culture. Though its physical location and editorial leadership has moved around the country, Sinister Wisdom has continued its investment in queer Southern life.
Julie Enszer
Julie R. Enszer is the editor and publisher of Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary journal publishing continuously since 1976. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland. Her current book project is A Fine Bind: Lesbian-Feminist Publishing from 1969 through 2009.
Rose Norman
Rose Norman is a retired professor of English and women’s studies who grew up in rural Alabama and now lives in Huntsville, Alabama. Her lifelong interest in stories of women’s lives led to scholarly research on American women’s autobiography. As general editor of the Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project, she has interviewed twenty-seven lesbians, and is eager to interview more.
Merril Mushroom
Merril Mushroom grew up in Miami Beach, Florida, and came out there in the 1950s. She lived in New York City in the 1960s, and has lived in rural middle Tennessee since the 1970s. She has written a wide variety of prose pieces. Her old-timey bar dyke stories can be found in out-of-print lesbian publications of the 1980s and 1990s.

Brown Bag Lectures take place each Wednesday at noon during the school year in Barnard Observatory.