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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 [2 favorites]

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

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

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 [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

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

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