75 research outputs found
Between Gay and Straight-1 Before
In chapter 1, “Before,” of the book Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship Across Sexual Orientation (AltaMira Press, 2001), I story the absences, silences, and stereotypes surrounding same-sex orientation when I came of age in the 1980s and early 90s
Wedding Album: An Antiheterosexist Performance Text
Historical and personal snapshots of weddings become poetic stanzas that advocate for marriage equality and for a social safety net strong enough to protect the human rights and meet the human needs of everyone, regardless of relational—or any other—statu
Labor Pains in the Academy
This piece offers autoethnographic reflections on crossroads to which many academics come: whether to seek (or postpone or avoid) parenthood and when. The author deeply explores the personal (her own trajectories from daughter and sister to potential mother and from graduate student to full professor) in order to reflect on structural constraints associated with graduate education, the academic job market, and institutional policies and politics
Body and Bulimia Revisited: Reflections on A Secret Life
In 1996, the author published “A Secret Life in a Culture of Thinness: Reflections on Body, Food, and Bulimia” (Tillmann-Healy, 1996), an account of her struggle with binging and purging from ages 15 to 25. She came to understand bulimia as a communicative act, expressing fear, anxiety, and grief. From 25 to 35, her recovery from bulimia involved learning to “purge” emotion through other forms of communication (e.g., dialogue, writing, and teaching). At 35, separation and divorce pose the greatest challenge to the author’s 10-year recovery, yet she does not return to bulimic expression. This article invites readers to sense and feel pathways in, through, and out of unhealthy relationships with our bodies and ourselves
Negotiating Academic and Personal Selves (Chapter 4 of the book Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship Across Sexual Orientation)
“Negotiating Academic and Personal Selves” is Chapter 4 of the book Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship Across Sexual Orientation (AltaMira Press, 2001). Here I show how my relationships with the gay men of my research community alter how I position myself in graduate courses, how I practice research, how I write, and how I teach my classes. As a student, I delve into new projects on sexual orientation and identity; as an instructor, I alter course reading lists, assignments, and activities. This chapter also moves through my increasingly problematic encounters with associates who identify as heterosexual. My new consciousness makes me impatient for my straight associates to raise their consciousness
Defending Life: Epilogue to Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship Across Sexual Orientation [book]
In the epilogue, “Defending Life,” the project comes full circle. The setting is the oral defense of my PhD dissertation. About a dozen of the men I befriended and wrote about—most of whom have read the document—are in attendance. My academic and research communities offer personal and scholarly responses to my work. We talk through the disbelief and pain surrounding Matthew Shepard’s death just four days before, and we try to direct ourselves toward a future of greater harmony and justice
Introduction to Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship Across Sexual Orientation [book]
This chapter sets a personal, academic, and cultural context for the author\u27s PhD dissertation research (1994-98), an ethnographic and interview study of a network of gay male friends in Tampa, Florida
Life Projects (Chapter 5 of the book Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship Across Sexual Orientation)
“Life Projects” is Chapter 5 of the book Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship Across Sexual Orientation (AltaMira Press, 2001). The timeframe spans from the fall of 1996 to January 1997. I’m taking a course on life history, and I ask a member of my research community, Gordon Bernstein, to participate in my project. During our interviews, Gordon teaches me about the ongoing process of coming out—to oneself, to other gay men, and to coworkers, friends, and family. Later, I grapple with elements of this network of gay male friends that can be unsettling, especially for women. I bemoan its obsession with appearance, and I question how gay male communities might become less exclusive and sexist. Taking this stance feels risky because it adds the entanglements of the critic role to those of researcher, friend, and advocate. By now, I’m a fully “vulnerable observer (Behar, 1996)
State of Unions: Politics and Poetics of Performance
At the 2005 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, the author delivered a poem and slide show, “The State of Unions: Activism (and In-Activism) in Decision 2004.” The performance processed the election in the context of her research community, a network of gay male friends—marginalized by sexual orientation but privileged by sex, gender expression, race, class, and education. Audience members offered mixed responses, some praising its provocative content, others criticizing the author’s position and tone, which some perceived as hostile, even as “gay bashing.
Build a Bridge Out of Her
This poem uses the structure, aesthetics, and meanings of bridges to engage contemporary political and ethical challenges, including war and economic injustice
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