Alpennia Blog

Tuesday, October 20, 2026 - 10:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project In parallel with the 19th century French medical establishment's difficulties in responding to non-binary bodies, French literature enjoyed playing with ambiguous gender, and reflected many aspects of the medical trends. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #582d Linton 2022 Unmaking Sex Chapter 3 About LHMP Full citation: Linton, Anne E. 2022. Unmaking Sex: The Gender Outlaws

Monday, October 19, 2026 - 20:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Linton goes deeply into the details of the 19th century French conflict between the law and biology around sex categorization. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #582c Linton 2022 Unmaking Sex Chapter 2 About LHMP Full citation: Linton, Anne E. 2022. Unmaking Sex: The Gender Outlaws of Nineteenth-Century France. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-316-51182-4

Friday, October 16, 2026 - 15:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project For years, as I've been reading historic research related to lesbianism, I've regularly come across topics and people where my first reaction is: "Why isn't the question of intersex being raised here?" A very few authors have integrated the topic into a general history of sexuality, but eventually I decided to pick up some more focused studies. Now I keep having to remind myself that intersexuality is tangential to my central…

Saturday, October 17, 2026 - 07:00 lhmpodcast.jpg Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 354 - Why is Intersexuality Relevant to the History of Lesbianism? - transcript (Originally aired 2026/10/17) Content Note Let’s start with a content note. Historic discussions of intersexuality have a hard time avoiding the word “hermaphrodite,” which today is considered offensive when applied to intersex persons. However, in historic use, “hermaphrodite” was used in a variety of contexts to indicate…

Thursday, October 15, 2026 - 12:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project This book and the previous one I blogged could hardly be more different in approach, given that they both revolve generally around intersexuality. While DeVun focused on philosophy and symbolism in medieval Europe generally, while also addressing the practical consequences for people with ambiguous bodies, Linton narrows in on the specific concerns of 19th century France and the interaction of medical and literary discources.…

Wednesday, October 14, 2026 - 10:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project I could have sworn I'd finished posting all the chapters of DeVun, but I went to start the next book and found this one still in queue. I have my second book on intersexuality all written up and will start posting it tomorrow. And the related podcast will come out this weekend. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #581g DeVun 2020 The Shape of Sex Chapter 6 About LHMP Full citation:

Saturday, October 3, 2026 - 07:00 lhmpodcast.jpg Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 353 - On the Shelf for October 2026 - Transcript (Originally aired 2026/10/03) Welcome to On the Shelf for October 2026. For those who have been following the saga of my broken wrist, I’ve been officially released from physical therapy. I still have some range-of-motion issues, but they’ll have to work themselves out through ordinary activity. One new thing I’ve been doing this summer has been attending a…

Thursday, October 1, 2026 - 10:41 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project The most significant thing that hits me as I read DeVun's history of the (European) attitude toward intersexuality is how little has changed. There is still a prevailing attitude that everyone must be shoehorned into either "clearly male" or "clearly female" and that the opinions and preferences of the person involved are of little moment. (One change is that in the pre-modern period, it appears that questions over…

Monday, September 28, 2026 - 12:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project If people today -- with the availability of modern medical understandings of sexual development and variation -- can have such difficulty fitting intersex people into their understanding of the world, just imagine how much more confused pre-modern people may have been. Though pre-modern people had the advantage of allowing for types of causation that had no actual biological basis. This chapter of DeVun reviews several of the…

Thursday, September 24, 2026 - 11:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Blog entry form is behaving oddly. Good thing today's post is brief and not particularly relevant. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #581d DeVun 2020 The Shape of Sex Chapter 3 About LHMP Full citation: DeVun, Leah. 2020. The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 978-0-2311-9551-5

Monday, September 21, 2026 - 13:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Although this book advertises itself as a history of non-binary identity, the initial chapters have a strong focus on "fictional" versions of non-binariness. While this can be uncomfortable reading for those looking for historic identification, it provides an important context for historic attitudes toward actual people whose sex or gender has not been easily categorizable. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #581c DeVun 2020…

Saturday, September 19, 2026 - 07:00 lhmpodcast.jpg Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 352 – Is Your Sapphic Protagonist Worried About the Wrong Things? - transcript (Originally aired 2026/09/19) Every historic romance novel needs some roadblocks and potholes on the path to a happy ending. The question is: what type? How do those barriers to love emerge naturally from the setting and the priorities of the characters? Considering contemporary romance for a moment, if one of your…

Wednesday, September 16, 2026 - 10:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project It's fascinating to me how solidly misogyny is embedded in early Christian culture that, even when envisioning the ideal state of humanity as androgynous beings "neither male nor female" there's still the unexamined assumption that once you have binary gender, it's necessarily hierarchical. This book will take a while to get to the aspects of non-binary identity that are relevant to the Project, but it's being a…

Sunday, September 13, 2026 - 15:26 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project I hope to answer that question in an upcoming podcast. (Probably not this month -- not enough time, and I still have another book to cover before I'm ready to do it.) But the short answer is that questions of how historic societies thought about "same-sex" issues relates very much to their understanding of how the sexes are defined and differentiated. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #581a DeVun 2020 The Shape of Sex…

Sunday, September 6, 2026 - 16:53 lhmpodcast.jpg Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 351 - On the Shelf for September 2026 - Transcript (Originally aired 2026/09/05) Welcome to On the Shelf for September 2026. It’s been quite a month! The first week of August I was in Orlando for the Golden Crown Literary Society conference, the last week was in Anaheim for the World Science Fiction Convention, and on top of that I started a much more intense physical therapy schedule for my broken arm…

Thursday, August 13, 2026 - 11:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project The last two covered publications about medieval romances had only tangential relevance to the Project, but this article is a treasure. I've previously run across passing references to the same-sex romantic interactions in Amadis de Gaule, but they tended to assume that the reader was thoroughly familiar with the tale. This article focuses specifically on those romances and lays out the background and context for the…

Sunday, August 9, 2026 - 20:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Discussions of cross-dressed medieval romance heroines commonly mention the tale of Grisandole. For the sake of completeness, I tracked down this comprehensive analysis of the tale. Although Grisandole's cross-dressing doesn't include any of the accidental homoeroticism of many such tales, this article is a great example of how medieval romances were built up out of pre-existing material, and how many parallel versions of a core…

Saturday, August 8, 2026 - 15:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project The medieval French Roman de Silence is a rich text for exploring gender and sexuality, but as is often the case, what you find can depend on what you're looking for. What I personally look for is often imagery that could have informed a medieval woman's understanding of her sexual possibilities. This author seems to have been looking for ways to associate the homoeroticism in the tale with the villainess--even though the…

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 - 14:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project This is the final item from the collection Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’. Once again, it's just a place-holder rather than a full summary, as the interview is entirely focused on the making of the modern tv series. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #577 Donoghue & Wainwright 2023 Emma Donoghue in Conversation with Sally Wainwright About LHMP

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 - 13:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project This week I'll be posting from the Golden Crown Literary Society conference in Orlando Florida! This is another article that I haven't summarized in detail (or much at all) because it's concerned with modern topics, specifically the process of adapting Lister's story for tv. The article if fascinating reading, but not pertinent to history, as such. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #576 Roulston 2023 From Anne Lister to…

Monday, August 3, 2026 - 16:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project The final section of this collection of articles centered around Anne Lister concerns itself with modern engagement with her history and legacy, like this one which has as a jumping-off point the wording on commemorative plaques installed referring to her. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #575 Gonda 2023 Labels, Plaques and Identity Categories About LHMP Full citation:

Sunday, August 2, 2026 - 11:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project No real summary on this one as it isn't directly relevant to the project. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #574 Steidele 2023 Traveling in the Caucasus About LHMP Full citation: Steidele , Angela. 2023. “Traveling in the Caucasus, Traveling in Time: Decoding Biography as Genre” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gon

Saturday, August 1, 2026 - 07:00 lhmpodcast.jpg Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 348 – 10th Anniversary Special: Interview with Linda Garber - transcript (Originally aired 2026/08/01) A transcript of the interview will be added when available. Show Notes An interview with Professor Linda Garber about her research into lesbian historical fiction. Books and Media Mentioned Garber, Linda. 2022. Novel Approaches to Lesbian History. Palgrave. ISBN 978-3030854164 Cruikshank, M. (ed) 1982.…

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 - 10:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Although primarily focusing on Lister as an example of 19th century tourism and female travelers, this article is also interesting for the examination of her visit to the Ladies of Llangollen at Plas Newydd. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #573 McHugh 2023 The Art of Travelling Requires an Apprenticeship About LHMP Full citation: McHugh , Kirsty. 2023. “‘The Art of Tr

Sunday, July 26, 2026 - 15:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project This is another article in the collection that doesn't touch directly on sexuality. It's well worth reading for an understanding of Lister's motivations in her domestic improvements, as well as for the delicate balance between Shibden as historic site and Shibden as media pilgrimage site. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #572 Clare 2023 Anne Lister’s Home About LHMP Full citation:

Saturday, July 25, 2026 - 17:55 thetheoryof-600wide.jpeg On August 25, 2026 I'll be releasing the book version of my project The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category. This is a revised and slightly expanded version of the blog series, based on reader feedback and some additional data that I was pointed to. It will be available both in ebook and print versions from all the usual sources. There are arguments for each format. In the print version,…

Saturday, July 25, 2026 - 11:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Like a number of the articles in this collection, this is more about the general social context of Anne Lister's life, with little direct reference to her sexuality. But because of the detailed nature of her archives, we can trace more general patterns in the social dynamics of her time. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #571 Ulph 2023 Building Castles in the Air About LHMP Full citation:

Friday, July 24, 2026 - 11:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project The modern political landscape might suggest an association between queer lives and progressive politics, but history is more complicated than that. Like some of her contemporaries, Lister embraced what Lanser frames as a "compensatory conservatism," resting also on her status as a landowner and entrepreneur, where conservative politics to some extent helped balance out the eccentricities of her personal life. Major category:…

Wednesday, July 22, 2026 - 10:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Not all of the articles in this collection have the historic focus that's my primary interest. But if my teasers intrigue you, the collection is available through Open Access. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #569 Baylis-Green 2023 Self-Conscious Closeting About LHMP Full citation: Baylis-Green, Caroline. 2023. “Self-Conscious Closeting and Paradoxical Writing in Anne Li

Tuesday, July 21, 2026 - 09:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Everything I've read by Stephen Turton on the history of queer language has been fascinating. This is no exception. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #568 Turton 2023 My Use of the Word Love About LHMP Full citation: Turton, Stephen. 2023. “‘My Use of the Word Love’: Lister, Language and the Dictionary” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulst