The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature
Cambridge Companions to Literature Series

The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature examines literary representations of lesbian sexuality, identities, and communities, from the medieval period to the present. In addition to providing a helpful orientation to key literary-historical periods, critical concepts, theoretical debates and literary genres, this Companion considers the work of such well-known authors as Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Alison Bechdel and Sarah Waters. Written by a host of leading critics and covering subjects as diverse as lesbian desire in the long eighteenth century and same-sex love in a postcolonial context, this Companion delivers insight into the variety of traditions that have shaped the present landscape of lesbian literature.

Lesbian literature?: an introduction Jodie Medd; 1. The queer time of lesbian literature: history and temporality Carla Freccero; 2. Debating definitions: the lesbian in feminist studies and queer studies Annamarie Jagose; 3. Experience, difference, and power Sandra K. Soto; 4. Global desires, postcolonial critique: queer women in nation, migration, and diaspora Shamira A. Meghani; 5. Situating female same-sex love in the middle ages Karma Lochrie; 6. 'Bedfellowes in royaltie': early/modern Sapphic representations Susan S. Lanser; 7. Writing lesbian desire in the long eighteenth century Caroline Gonda; 8. Lesbian postmortem at the fin de siècle Kate Thomas; 9. Modern times: modernist writing, modern sexualities Madelyn Detloff; 10. Popular genres and 'lesbian' culture: from pulp to crime, and beyond Kaye Mitchell; 11. Lesbian autobiography and memoir Monica Pearl; 12. Lesbianism-poetry/poetry-lesbianism Amy Sara Carroll; 13. Contemporary lesbian fiction: into the twenty-first century Emma Parker; 14. Comics, graphic narratives, and lesbian lives Heike Bauer.

Jodie Medd is Associate Professor of English at Carleton University, Ottawa. She is the author of Lesbian Scandal and the Culture of Modernism (Cambridge, 2012) and essays on queer sexuality and modernism.