New Books in LGBTQ+ Studies

Visibility

Oct 6, 2023

Margaret Galvan discusses the queer politics of Visibility. Topics include queer comic books, Nan Goldin's photography, Adrienne Rich's essay on 'Compulsory Heterosexuality', and the Lesbian Avengers. She explores the power of visibility, representation through visual art, and the interplay of text and image. The podcast highlights the significance of visibility for LGBTQ+ individuals, fostering a sense of community and unity.

16:21

Episode guests

Margaret Galvan

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

LGBTQ individuals in the 1980s used visual arts like comics and photography to make their lives and experiences visible, challenging societal taboos and reclaiming their history.

Images, particularly in the form of comics and visual presentations, serve as a welcoming practice that fosters community, sparks conversations, and increases visibility.

Deep dives

Visibility in LGBTQ Communities in the 1980s

The podcast explores how LGBTQ individuals, particularly women, made their lives and experiences visible in the 1980s. With limited representation in mainstream media, marginalized communities turned to visual arts like comics, drawings, and photography to document their histories and showcase their humanity. This visibility was not just about making themselves visible, but also about reclaiming their history and challenging the erasure of lesbian existence from recorded narratives. Artists like Nan Golden used intimate photography to depict the lives of LGBTQ individuals, aiming to show their humanity and challenge societal taboos. The podcast highlights the importance of art in making individuals and communities visible.

Introduction

3min

Exploring Visibility, Representation, and Artivism

4min

The Power of Visibility and Using Images

2min

Exploring the Interplay of Text and Image for Visibility

2min

The Power of Visibility in the Queer Community

3min

In this episode of High Theory, Margaret Galvan talks about the queer politics of Visibility. In her work the activist practices of representation take concrete form in comic books, photographs, and even drawings on lecture slides!

In the episode, she discusses the photography of Nan Goldin and queer comic books in the 1980s. She quotes Adrienne Rich’s 1980 essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” She also references This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color, and Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera. At the end of the episode she references the Lesbian Avengers, who have amazing images.

Margaret Galvan is an assistant professor of English at the University of Florida. Her research examines how visual culture operates within the print media of feminist and queer social movements of the 1970s-1990s. Her brand new book In Visible Archives: Queer and Feminist Visual Culture in the 1980s, is out this fall from University of Minnesota Press‘s Manifold Scholarship Series. You should go check it out!

Because the amazing images Margaret talks about were drawn recently, they’re still in copyright. Our image this week is from Gladys Parker’s comic Mopsy which ran from 1937 to 1966. Parker was a successful female artist in a world of mainstream US comic books dominated by men.

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