My Butch Career: A Memoir

Esther Newton

Published by Duke University Press 2018

My Butch Career

A Memoir

Esther Newton

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478002727

Overview
Contents

About this book

Esther Newton—a pioneer figure in gay and lesbian studies—tells the compelling and disarming story of her struggle to write, teach, and find love, all while coming to terms with her lesbian identity during one of the worst periods of homophobic persecution in the twentieth century.

Author / Editor information

Esther Newton is formerly Term Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Michigan and Professor of Anthropology at Purchase College, State University of New York. She is the author of several books, including Margaret Mead Made Me Gay and Cherry Grove, Fire Island, both also published by Duke University Press, as well as Mother Camp.

Reviews

"Newton is not afraid to get personal and offer her mistakes, personality development, and failed relationships for contemplation. After decades of personal and professional struggle, Newton finds a scholarly community in an evolved culture and helps to create the academic study of gender and sexuality. This book is simultaneously a memoir and an exemplar of this important field."

-- Emily Dziuban Booklist

"In the tradition of the best memoirs, it is chattily engaging, historically illuminating, and deeply, provocatively ruminative. . . . My Butch Career feels intoxicatingly, palpably real: It’s a story we can reach out and touch and one we can also situate ourselves in, even if we’re decades younger than the 78-year-old Newton. What makes My Butch Career so compelling is that while writing about herself, Newton is also examining her milieu with the eye of the cultural anthropologist she became. The story she tells is as much our story as it is hers."

-- Victoria A. Brownworth Curve

"The most captivating part of the book sees Newton circulating through second-wave feminist and lesbian circles in New York and Paris, where the debates, social hierarchies, and tangled affairs she encounters bring her to a late coming of age. In the eighties, her scholarship, once ignored, achieves recognition with the rise of gender and sexuality studies. The book is a thoughtful examination of how personal experiences spur intellectual progress."

-- The New Yorker

"Throughout My Butch Career, Newton is remarkably candid about the ways that class has influenced her work and perspective on the historical events unfolding around her. . . . It’s a testament to just how great an anthropologist and chronicler of queer life she is that Newton makes sure to include the kinds of details that paint a more complete and complex picture of the world as she’s experienced it."

-- Alexis Clements Los Angeles Review of Books

"Disarming and compelling. . . . My Butch Career is the humorous and graceful story of a gender outlaw in the making, blazing the trail in queer academia."

-- The Advocate

"My Butch Career joins a distinguished list of lesbian herstories. . .. It is for readers interested in the psychological and cultural challenges for an individual who identifies as a butch lesbian, as well as readers who are interested in lesbian herstory within the greater context of thegay rights movement."

-- Cassandra Langer Gay & Lesbian Review

"My Butch Career is an important narrative of liberation that contributes singularly to the growing body of collective LGBTQ history. It covers the first forty-one years of the writer’s life, a time frame that calls out for a sequel. Newton concludes her memoir with a tribute to the queer writers who have preceded her. With this work, she has secured her place in that pantheon."

-- Anne Charles Lambda Literary Review

“My Butch Career is an arrival story.... All anthropologists, students as well as educators, should read this because it calls attention to what has changed and shows the importance of LGBT/queer social movements and networks of non-normative communities.”

-- Anika Keinz Journal of the Royal Anthropological Quarterly

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
INTRODUCTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1: A Hard Left Fist Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
Chapter 2: A Writer’s Inheritance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
Chapter 3: Manhattan Tomboy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
Chapter 4: California Trauma Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
Chapter 5: Baby Butch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Chapter 6: Anthropology of the Closet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
Chapter 7: Lesbian Feminist New York Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Chapter 8: The Island of Women Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	160
Chapter 9: In-Between Dyke Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Chapter 10: Paris France Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	198
Chapter 11: Butch Revisited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Illustrations
- Other: 25 illustrations

eBook

Published: October 25, 2018
ISBN: 9781478002727