People with a History

February 2, 2008 12:20 PM

People with a History is "an online guide to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans history." Ranging from the first stirrings of civilization to the modern day, People with a History gathers together original sources and academic articles dealing with queerness throughout history. To give you a feel for the wealth of material on the site, here are a few pages that caught my interest: The Vikings and Homosexuality, Coptic Spell: Spell for a Man to Obtain a Male Lover, an acount of a gay marriage ceremony described by Michel de Montaigne, But Among Our Own Selves (an 18th Century gay ballad), a chapter from The Life of St. Theodore of Sykeon, a 7th Century Byzantine monk and bishop, which mentions adelphopoiesis, or the rite of brothermaking, Wu Tsao, 19th Century Chinese lesbian poet, and finally Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men.
posted by Kattullus (15 comments total)

Amazing post - thanks for this!
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:43 PM on February 2, 2008

It includes a guide to John Boswell's work, which has to be so much more fun than actually reading John Boswell.

Thank you so much for posting this.
posted by munchingzombie at 12:47 PM on February 2, 2008

I'd also highly recommend Ted Jennings stuff on GLBT issues and the Bible:
The Man Jesus Loved and
Jacob's Wound.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:54 PM on February 2, 2008

Wow. Just splashed around a bit—very impressive. Favorited for later perusal.
posted by languagehat at 2:35 PM on February 2, 2008

::glee::
posted by batmonkey at 2:43 PM on February 2, 2008

Yes, excellent post. Thanks.
posted by Jikido at 2:45 PM on February 2, 2008

Nice one, thanks.
posted by dash_slot- at 3:41 PM on February 2, 2008

and history is altogether silent as to the practice of lesbianism in the Viking Age.

Thank goodness things have changed!

Oh, wait.

Excellent post. Thank you.
posted by rtha at 3:42 PM on February 2, 2008

Even more awesomeness! From a link on the page from the last link in the FPP:

The Polari Bible : The glossy of Genesis

Genesis
Chapter 1

1 In the beginning Gloria created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was nanti form, and void; and munge was upon the eke of the deep. And the fairy of Gloria trolled upon the eke of the aquas.
3 And Gloria cackled, Let there be sparkle: and there was sparkle.

*goes back to poking through links*
posted by rtha at 4:02 PM on February 2, 2008 [2 favorites]

Thanks for this :)
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 4:06 PM on February 2, 2008

Definitely favorited for further reading.
posted by snsranch at 5:11 PM on February 2, 2008

Amazing.
I was intrigued by Wu Tsao. Seems her name was 吴藻 (Wú Zǎo as romanised using hanyu pinyin) and there is a fair bit on the Chinese web about her, e.g. this Baidu question and answer.. Rather nice pic here, which I presume is entirely fanciful. There's no mention of her being gay on a skin of the Baidu article; the one English-language abstract that came up searching on the pinyin of her name says: "Wu Zao's poems have been said to express "lesbian" sentiments. I would suggest, however, that her lyrics be re-interpreted in the context of the self-conscious autoeroticism that is the theme of her play Silhouette in Disguise (Qiao Ying)." The cross-dressing mentioned there is noted in the Chinese sources I read however, and she was clearly not blithely following a stereotypical gender role as expected of a woman of her class whatever the case.
posted by Abiezer at 7:25 PM on February 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

I first encountered Paul Halsall on the Mediev-L list (oh, about 10 years ago). If the design of the site is a little 1998, his efforts are absolutely top-notch.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:15 PM on February 2, 2008

The GLBTQ Encyclopedia is another don't-miss website.
posted by Carol Anne at 7:06 AM on February 3, 2008

Lots of interesting stuff here. Thanks
posted by MotherTucker at 8:48 AM on February 4, 2008