When we know essentially nothing about the personal lives of people being referenced in intriguing ways, the temptation for historians is always to fill in the details with speculation or assumption. But that's when the world-view of the person doing the speculating and assuming can have an outsized impact on how the facts are interpreted for posterity.
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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 356 - On the Shelf for November 2026 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2026/11/07)
Welcome to On the Shelf for November 2026.
Many people have tried to relate Lucian's 5th Dialogue of the Courtesans either to actual Roman attitudes towards women's same-sex relationships, or to the reality of those relationships. The problem is that, not only is any underlying truth filtered through an elite male author, there isn't always agreement on what Lucian's purpose was in writing the dialogues. Bissa tries to use internal evidence in the text to tackle some of these questions.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 355 – The Sultan’s Vetala by Priya Sridhar - transcript
(Originally aired 2026/10/31)
I love it when we not only get a fiction episode at the end of October, but we have a story to schedule that partakes of the supernatural or a touch of horror. When I suggested to Priya that we might air this story on Halloween, she was delighted by the idea.
Often when a book or article brings in literary criticism to discuss a historic topic, I feel like it's more of an intellectual game. But in this case, it really does feel like the literary and the real-life aspects are so solidly braided together that the approach makes sense.
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.
Linton goes deeply into the details of the 19th century French conflict between the law and biology around sex categorization.
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 topic and I shouldn't go haring off after biographies and whatnot.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 354 - Why is Intersexuality Relevant to the History of Lesbianism? - transcript
(Originally aired 2026/10/17)
Content Note
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. I appreciated that Linton clearly addressed the question of why 19th century France was something of a special case.
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