Gay and Lesbian Studies

Periodicals

The Library has representative holdings of gay and lesbian periodicals both past and current. Apart from the bibliographies and checklists noted above, Magazines for Libraries (15th Ed., 2007, Pub. Cat. 93-230) offers annotated entries for many currently published serials. Malinowsky's International Directory of Gay and Lesbian Periodicals and Miller's Our Own Voices (see Directories and Indexes) are best employed as retrospective sources.

The International Gay Information Center's [IGIC's] Checklist of Periodicals (Pub. Cat. 92-19166) should be consulted for those titles not yet cataloged. Titles included in this list are maintained by the Manuscripts and Archives Division and are accessible through the Special Collections Office. Since some of these titles may be duplicated in other divisions of the Library, please check the catalog.

To search for articles in periodicals, use the database LGBT Life with Full Text (Ebsco) available onsite at the Research Libraries. LGBT Life with Full Text provides indexing and abstracting of content related to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender studies in over 230 journals, magazines, and newspapers. LGBT Life also provides full text from a number of important sources including monographs and publications such as The Advocate, New York Blade, and Out.

An overview of serial titles can be obtained through CATNYP with the keyword searches gay periodicals and lesbian periodicals. Using these keywords results in the greatest number of citations. Older titles which began before 1972 (e.g. One and The Ladder) may also be found on CATNYP.

The following statement from The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 1993), pages 653-654, is valuable for its analysis of the current state of periodical literature in gay and lesbian studies:

GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies provides wide coverage of the field. The Journal of Homosexuality is especially strong in the quantitative social sciences, though it also carries articles in other areas including literary criticism. Journal of the History of Sexuality publishes regularly in lesbian/gay history. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies is another periodical well worth following; it is home to much work in queer theory. Genders carries a wide range of lesbian/gay studies articles-in history, literary criticism, cultural studies, and art history. Hypatia and Lesbian Ethics carry philosophy. Signs, Feminist Review, and Feminist Studies all include current scholarship on lesbianism, done from many different disciplinary perspectives. Radical America, Socialist Review, Radical History Review, Radical Teacher, and Social Text all carry some lesbian/gay studies work, particularly work that is politically inflected. Camera Obscura, Discourse, and Jump Cut carry some lesbian/gay studies work on film and popular culture, while Raritan, ELH: A Journal of English Literary History, Representations, Critical Inquiry, and Yale Journal of Criticism carry some in literary criticism. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Newsletter provides networking news for students and teachers, and reviews of books. It also provides, in every issue, a list of the various discipline-specific bulletins in lesbian/gay studies (such as the Association of Lesbian/Gay Psychologists Newsletter and G&L Caucus News of the College Art Association), and of the bulletins produced by specific centers for lesbian/gay studies (such as Center/Fold: Toronto Centre for Lesbian & Gay Studies Newsletter and Homologie Documentatiecentrum Homostudies, University of Amsterdam), along with information on how to subscribe to them.

There are other periodicals which are relatively less academic and professional, relatively more community-based and popular. These include the women's journals Conditions, Sinister Wisdom, Heresies, Frontiers, Off Our Backs, and Sojourner; the black gay journal Other Countries; and Out/Look, Christopher Street, The Guide, Magnus, QW, and The Advocate. All make contributions to lesbian/gay studies. So do community newspapers, such as Angels (Vancouver), The Bay Area Reporter (San Francisco), Capital Gay (London), The Blade (Washington, D.C.), Gai Pied Hebdo (Paris), Bay Windows (Boston), Rites (Toronto), and Windy City Times (Chicago).