Sapphic Modernities
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Sapphic Modernities Sexuality, Women and National Culture EDITED BY LAURA DOAN AND JANE GARRITY
SAPPHIC MODERNITIES Laura Doan and Jane Garrity, 2006. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-1-4039-6498-4 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-52858-5 ISBN 978-1-4039-8442-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781403984425 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: June 2006 10987654321
To Karen and Mar, partners and editors extraordinaire
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Contents List of Illustrations ix Introduction Laura Doan and Jane Garrity 1 Chapter 1 Part 1 Sexual Geographies: Circulation and Mobility The Sapphist in the City: Lesbian Modernist Paris and Sapphic Modernity 17 Joanne Winning Chapter 2 Romaine Brooks and the Future of Sapphic Modernity 35 Tirza True Latimer Chapter 3 The Woman Who Does : A Melbourne Motor Garage Proprietor 55 Georgine Clarsen Part 2 The Sapphic Body in Space: Leisure, Commodity Culture, Domesticity Chapter 4 Sapphic Smokers and English Modernities 75 Penny Tinkler Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Woman s Place Is the Home : Conservative Sapphic Modernity 91 Laura Doan Art Deco Hybridity, Interior Design, and Sexuality between the Wars: Two Double Acts: Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher/Eyre de Lanux and Evelyn Wyld 109 Bridget Elliott
viii Contents Chapter 7 Part 3 In and Out of Place: History, Displacement, and Revision Impossible Objects: Waiting for the Revolution in Summer Will Show 133 Heather K. Love Chapter 8 Virginia Woolf s Greek Lessons 149 Colleen Lamos Chapter 9 A Sudden Orgy of Decadence : Writing about Sex between Women in the Interwar Popular Press 165 Alison Oram Part 4 Embracing Discursive Space: Re-Imagining Psychoanalysis and Spirituality Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Edith Ellis, Sapphic Idealism, and The Lover s Calendar (1912) 183 Jo-Ann Wallace Séances and Slander: Radclyffe Hall in 1920 201 Jodie Medd Telling It Straight: The Rhetorics of Conversion in Elizabeth Bowen s The Hotel and Freud s Psychogenesis 217 Petra Rau Mary Butts s Fanatical Pédérastie : Queer Urban Life in 1920s London and Paris 233 Jane Garrity Notes on Contributors 253 Index 257
Illustrations I.1 Beresford Egan, Sappho and the Latter-day Adolescents, The Sink of Solitude, 1928 2 2.1 Romaine Brooks, Self-Portrait, 1923. Credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of the artist 36 2.2 Front Cover, Romaine Brooks: Portraits, tableaux, dessins, featuring the artist s 1923 self-portrait 39 2.3 Back Cover, Romaine Brooks: Portraits, tableaux, dessins 42 2.4 Romaine Brooks, Le Temps sépare (Time Divides), c.1930, reproduced in Romaine Brooks: Portraits, tableaux, dessins 45 2.5 Romaine Brooks, untitled self-portrait, c.1938. Credit: The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University 47 2.6 Gerda Wegner, L Etérnel ménage à trois, published in Fantasio, 1926 50 3.1 Alice Anderson, Motor Mechanic, Home, December 1, 1920. Courtesy National Library of Australia 61 3.2 Staff at the Kew Garage, Home, December 1, 1920. Courtesy National Library of Australia 62 3.3 Alice pretending to be the boyfriend of a polio victim she had taken on an outing. Courtesy Anderson family 68 6.1 Photograph by Dietrich Hanff of a corner of Phyllis Barron s study at Hambutt s House, 1964 Crafts Study Centre 113 6.2 Jacket worn by Phyllis Barron Crafts Study Centre 113 6.3 Barron and Larcher, a corner of the Combination Room at Girton College, Cambridge, with curtain and cushions by Dorothy Larcher, standard lamp by
x Illustrations Eric Sharpe and table by Fred Foster, c. 1934. Courtesy of Girton College Archives 115 6.4 Eyre de Lanux and Wyld, Baie d un studio au 49 e étage, with a glass table by Eyre de Lanux and rug by Evelyn Wyld, Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, 1928. Courtesy of RIBA 116 6.5 Functionalist Interior from Osbert Lancaster, Homes Sweet Homes (London: J. Murray, 1939) 118 6.6 Modernistic Interior from Osbert Lancaster, Homes Sweet Homes (London: J. Murray, 1939) 119