The Lesbian in Literature

The Lesbian in Literature was the name of a panel hosted by Virginia Apuzzo at the 1974 NYU Gay Academic Union Conference. In this panel, Janet Cooper, of the American Library Association’s Task Force on Gay Liberation speaks on female crushes, friendships, and affections in children's literature prior to the 1920's, particularly as it relates to the influence of early 20th-century librarian Anne Carroll Moore and her control over publishing standards that suppressed depictions of female relationships. Author Cynthia Secor, PhD, Chairperson of the Modern Language Association's Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession, compares lesbian and feminist aesthetics in the writings of Gertrude Stein and James Joyce while celebrating Stein’s rejection of patriarchal literary traditions and her creation of new forms of expression rooted in female consciousness, identity, and language.

Together, the talks explore censorship, literary history, and lesbian representation within both children’s and modernist literature.