Queer Lit

Dr Alberto Fernández Carbajal (University of Roehampton) tells me all about their insightful book Queer Muslim Diasporas in Contemporary Literature and Film (2019) in this episode. We cover their favourite reads and learn what a Muslim perspective can teach us about queerness. This kind of research is all about changing perspectives and fostering understanding, so I do hope you will be understanding when it comes to the sound of Alberto’s beautiful scarf that I was unable to remove from the audio

In this episode, Diana Souhami explains how Modernism was fundamentally shaped by lesbians* and queer people. We talk about how Sylvia Beach published Joyce’s "Ulysses" when no publisher would touch it, how Bryher financed penniless artists who then became the crème de la crème of Modernism, how H.D. arguably wrote better imagist poetry than Pound, and which lesbian love affairs resulted in the most enticing scandals. Diana, who I may or may not have heard being referred to as Lesbian Royalty, has

In this episode, I am talking to Ashley Thornton (Brighton University) about epicene pronouns and gender-inclusive language. Ashley is a corpus linguist working on singular they in English, Spanish and Russian and has some insights on the history of gender-neutral pronouns as well. The scholars (and Twitter accounts) referenced in this episode are:Olu Jenzen @DrOluJenzenCharlotte StormbomLaura Hekanaho @LHekanahoJoshua Paiz (their account's private) @JMPaiz_PhD Kris Knisley @kriskniselyKirby Conrod

In this episode, Dr Kit Heyam (Northumbria University) shares wonderful tidbits from trans and non-binary histories, talks about their book on queer king Edward II and is generally delightful and clever. Kit also talks about how they approach queering history, the intersections of literary studies and historical research and their favourite contemporary queer reads, such as "The Lauras" by Sara Taylor, "My Autobiography of Carson McCullers" by Jenn Shapland or "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula