Ab/normal Looking

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Marge Frantz for her generous spirit, and for opening up the world of the 1950s and 1960s to me.

Notes

1. No book-length academic studies have been done. Of two lesbian literary anthologies, Faderman (1994, p. vii) explicitly says pulps are not worthy of attention and excludes them even though she includes admittedly homophobic writing, writing by sexologists and scientists, and writing by men. Terry Castle (2003) finds the sheer quantity of lesbian representation in pornography important, yet neither discusses nor anthologizes lesbian pulps, other than three that were originally published as “literary” (what I call elsewhere “recycled pulps”). Pulps are mentioned in passing in work by: John D'Emilio (1983, p. 135); Lillian Faderman (1981, pp. 355-356, 378, 383, 392, 1991, pp. 146-147, 185); and Bonnie Zimmerman (1990, pp. 9, 13, 22, 31). Fortunately a reassessment of lesbian pulp has begun. An initial much neglected foray, Maida Tilchen and Fran Koski's (1975) article defended lesbian pulp from seventies feminist political sensibilities. Augmented by republication of some pulps in the 1970s (Arno Press), in the 1980s (Naiad Press and Timely Books), and in the 1990s (Quality Paperback Book Club); the reappraisal began in the late eighties and early nineties in the work of scholars such as Susanna Benns (1986), Alison Hennegan (1988), Suzanna Danuta Walters (1989), Kate Adams (1990), Diane Hamer (1990), Donna Penn (1991), Angela Weir & Elizabeth Wilson (1992), and Michèle Aina Barale (1993). It was complemented by more popular work (1980-2001), of Andrea Loewenstein (1980), Roberta Yusba (1985a, 1985b, 1991), Eric Garber (1989a, 1989b), Kate Brandt (1993), Dorothy Allison (1994), Lee Server (1994), Donna Allegra (1995), Jaye Zimet (1999), and Susan Stryker (2001). More recently a “Lesbian Pulp Address Book,” a film (Forbidden Love 1992), and a play (Pulp 2004 ) have surfaced. In 1995 New York University Press released Diana: A Strange Autobiography; while in 2003 the Feminist Press released The Girls in 3-B. Between 2001 and 2004 Cleis Press republished five of Bannon's lesbian pulps as well as Packer's Spring Fire ( 2004 ). Most recent is the work of scholars such as Yvonne Keller (1999), Christopher Nealon (2001), Kelly Hankin (2002), and Lisa Walker (2003), and research on gay male pulp by David Bergman (1999) and Michael Bronski (2003).

2. Mulvey's theory was crucial to the field of film studies, and especially feminist film theory. It has been agreed with by many (see for example Mary Ann Doane 1991), and of course critiqued and furthered by innumerable theorists since then, including Mulvey (and Doane) herself. Many argue against the monolithic quality of her model, arguing for resistant/subversive readings by multiply situated subjects. But I find her argument, while limited, carries great interpretive power for the 1950s exactly because it is a time in which her model held such sway, and especially for lesbian pulps novels, which are so ideologically obvious and simple as to conform to hegemonic norms particularly strongly.

3. For histories of pre-Stonewall g/l/b/t life, see especially: John D'Emilio (1983, 1992), Allan Bérubé (1990), Lillian Faderman (1991), Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy & Madeline D. Davis (1993), George Chauncey, Jr. (1994), Scott Bravmann (1997), Jennifer Terry (1999), Elizabeth Armstrong (2002), Nan Alamilla Boyd (2003).

4. See Simmons (1990) for ways a female hero in a mostly female discursive space is still easily voyeuristically used by male readers.

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Notes on contributors

Yvonne Keller

Yvonne Keller is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University-Ohio. Her forthcoming book, is entitled Pulp Sappho: Lesbian Pulp Novels and Spectacularization in U.S. Popular Culture analyzes 1950s and 60s lesbian pulp novels in the [email protected]