Erotic Knowledge

Erotic Knowledge explores how US lesbian feminists raised questions about the political stakes of sexual freedom, how their distinctive political vocabularies informed coalition- and institution-building in ways that strain against contemporary queer and feminist assumptions, and how these alternative grammars were left behind in the decades since lesbian feminism’s remarkable surge in the 1970s. Elena Gambino makes the case that the past of US lesbian feminism is rich in resources not only for rethinking vital questions of sexual freedom in the present, but also for incorporating these questions into a broader understanding of the silencing effects of disciplinary historical knowledge. Drawing on archival sources typically ignored in political theory, such as lesbian feminist poetry, literary criticism, and the publications of small presses and periodicals, Gambino argues that the full extent of lesbian feminists’ contributions should be seen as a distinctive form of political analysis that which can guide lesbian feminist interventions in sexual intimacy, epistemology, and institution-building.