Episodi

  • “Queer Exiles” with Ben Robbins

    “Queer Exiles” with Ben Robbins
    Jan 20 2026
    From Christopher Isherwood to Djuna Barnes, some of the most prolific queer writers of the 20th century wrote in exile. Ben Robbins joins me to explain how and why queer writers connected with each other in exile and how (in)voluntary movement shaped their stories. Ben shares some surprising encounters from the archives and paints a picture of some of the locations of queer exile: Berlin, Tangier and Capri.

    References:
    Networked Narratives: Queer Exile Literature 1900-1969
    Funded by the Austrian Science Fund/FWF (Project DOI: 10.55776/P35199)
    https://www.uibk.ac.at/projects/networkednarratives/
    Ben Robbins’ “‘Marriages ought to be secret’: Queer Marriages of Convenience and the Exile Narrative” JAAAS: Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies, vol. 5, no. 1, Dec. 2023, pp. 100–122, https://doi.org/10.47060/jaaas.v5i1.173.
    Networks of Anglophone LGBTQ+ Exile Writers
    http://queerexilelit.uibk.ac.at/ Robbins, Ben, and Ralph J. Poole. "Introduction: Queer Ruralisms." AmLit – American Literatures 4.2 (2024): 4-21.
    Ben Robbins’ Faulkner's Hollywood Novels: Women between Page and Screen (University of Virginia Press 2024) https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5855/
    Queer Second Cities
    Maria Sulimma
    Ben Robbins’ “Christopher Isherwood in Exile”
    https://www.huntington.org/verso/christopher-isherwood-exile
    Harry Ransom Center
    Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman)
    Oscar Wilde
    W. Somerset Maugham
    E.F. Benson
    John Ellingham Brooks
    Romaine Brooks
    John Ellerman
    Robert McAlmon
    Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood
    Natalie Barney
    Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin
    Stephen Spender’s The Temple
    Jane Bowles’ Two Serious Ladies
    W.H. Auden
    Patricia Highsmith
    Allen Ginsberg
    Claude McKay
    Thornton Wilder
    Ben Robbins. "Space, Sexuality, and Thornton Wilder's Villa Rhabani." Thornton Wilder Journal 5:1, November 2024, pp. 99-119. DOI: 10.5325/thorntonwilderj.5.1.0099
    https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/thornton-wilder/article-abstract/5/1/99/392187/Space-Sexuality-and-Thornton-Wilder-s-Villa?redirectedFrom=fulltext
    Open access: https://ulb-dok.uibk.ac.at/urn/urn:nbn:at:at-ubi:3-40689
    William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch
    Alfred Chester’s Looking for Genet: Literary Essays and Reviews
    Susan Sontag
    Gore Vidal
    Henry James
    Truman Capote

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. How does Ben define ‘exile’? How is this similar to and different from ‘expat’?
    2. How does exile relate to class status and financial means?
    3. Why are queer networks so important in this context?
    4. What does Ben say about exile and (involuntary) movement affecting narrative form?
    5. How do you find out where you can safely travel?
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    47 min
  • Queer Lit on Amplified

    Queer Lit on Amplified
    Jan 6 2026
    Time for a cross-over! I had the absolute pleasure on being invited to join the Amplified network and appear on their superb podcast. Here is our episode and Amplified's show notes:

    "Amplified is an audio blog series about the sounds of scholarship from our team here at the Amplify Podcast Network. This month on Amplified, Stacey Copeland and Hannah McGregor are joined by Lena Mattheis to kick off a brand new series featuring the latest additions to our sustained cohort of podcasters. Lena is the creator and host of Queer Lit, a podcast about LGBTQIA2S+* literature and culture. In this conversation, we reflect on podcasting as a tool for community building and queer scholarly practice, tracing how Queer Lit emerged from Lena's teaching practice and a commitment to accessible feminist and queer knowledge creation."
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    24 min
  • Festive Special Part 2

    Festive Special Part 2
    Dec 23 2025
    What is the queerest thing you did this year? Listen to the festive special to find out how queer our guests and listeners made 2025!

    References:
    Liz Breslin
    How To Read podcast
    https://www.howtoreadpodcast.com/elaine-auyoung-one-sided-relationships/
    Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Nonconformity in Anglophone Literature (OUP, March 2026)
    https://global.oup.com/academic/product/queer-forms-and-pronouns-9780198974116?q=lena%20mattheis&lang=en&cc=gb
    Susan Stryker
    Louise Siddons’ Good Pictures Are A Strong Weapon
    https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517910730/good-pictures-are-a-strong-weapon/
    Category is Books (Glasgow)
    Lighthouse Books (Edinburgh)
    The Bookish Type (Leeds)
    Kit Heyam
    Royal Vauxhall Tavern
    All Of Us Strangers
    Nick Cherryman
    European Gay Ski Week
    Oliver Slate-Green’s The Way Blood Travels
    Leah Davidson
    Listenqueer.co.uk
    Out and Wild
    Leilah King
    Coast is Queer
    Jack Gieseking
    Our Dyke Histories podcast
    Julie Enszer
    Lesbian Lives
    Sinister Wisdom
    The Essential Poems of Pat Parker (The 87 Press)
    Caro de Robertis’ The Palace of Eros
    Joelle Taylor’s Maryville
    Alison Bechdel’s Spent
    Allan Johnson
    https://thisisallan.medium.com/elf-and-safety-2b061323dbc1
    Flora Johnson’s Christopher Popinkins
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    31 min
  • Festive Special Part 1

    Festive Special Part 1
    Dec 16 2025
    What is the queerest thing you did this year? Listen to the festive special to find out how queer our guests and listeners made 2025!

    References:
    Happiest Season
    Kristen Stewart
    Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
    Joe Jukes
    https://www.hiss.sydney/
    Virginia Gay’s Cyrano
    Qtopia Sydney
    Queer Britain
    @guildfordgaybookclub New House Art Space (Guildford) Juno Dawson’s Stay Another Day Layla McCay’s The Queer Bookshelf: A Reader’s Guide (June 2026) Libro.fm Pillion Arzner @Arznercinema
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    23 min
  • Queerest thing you did this year?

    Queerest thing you did this year?
    Nov 18 2025
    Share the queerest thing you did this year by 6 December to be featured on the end-of-year special and for the chance to win a special gift (if you are based in the UK). Send an email or voice recording to queerlitpodcast@gmail.com by 6 December.

    I can't wait to hear from you!
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    2 min
  • “Ancient Myths and Lesbian Legends” with Mara Gold

    “Ancient Myths and Lesbian Legends” with Mara Gold
    Nov 11 2025
    Medusa, Medea, Artemis… we’ve all heard their stories before but what do they sound like when not told by (or centred on) men? Mara Gold, the sapphic scholar, is here to tell us all about these figures and about how there is always more than one side to a story and more than one reading to a myth. Come for the lesbian legends, stay for the witty witches and follow us @queerlitpodcast and @sapphic_scholar.

    References

    Mara Gold’s Ancient Myths and Legends Without Men (2025)
    Mara Gold’s “Rebels Against the Tyranny of Men’: Women Performing Greek Comedy in Early Twentieth-Century Britain” in Women Creating Classics (2025)
    https://mara-gold.com/
    @sapphic_scholar
    Beyond the Binary Pitt Rivers Museum
    https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/beyond-the-binary
    Ashmolean Museum
    Rebellious Bodies audio tour
    https://app.smartify.org/en-GB/tours/ashmolean-rebellious-bodies-tour?utm_campaign=ashmoleansmartifywebpage&utm_medium=webpagelink&utm_source=ashmoleanwebsite&utm_content=rebelliousbodiestour
    Smartify
    Hélène Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975)
    Femme fatale
    Gorgons
    Apotropaic figure
    Athena
    Hera
    Natalie Haynes’ Stone Blind
    Madeleine Miller’s Circe
    Rosie Hewlett
    Pat Barker
    Madeleine Miller’s Circe
    Sirens
    Odyssey
    Durham Castle
    Hans Christian Andersen
    Selkie
    Demeter
    Penelope
    Medea
    Maenad
    Dionysus
    Bacchus
    True Blood
    Amazon
    Atalanta
    Nataly Barney
    Lesbos-en-Seine
    Artemis
    Double Slice
    https://doubleslice.studio/
    Actaeon
    Callisto
    Zeus
    Aphrodite
    Jason
    Argonauts
    Glauce
    Suranne Jones
    Doctor Foster
    Gentleman Jack
    Children of Srikandi (2012)
    Hector and Hephaestus
    Radical Book Fair
    Lighthouse Books Edinburgh
    The Bookish Type
    Caper bookshop
    The Magicians
    Persephone
    Cassandra

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. What is sapphism?
    2. What is classical reception? How is this relevant to Mara’s work?
    3. What are the archetypes that Mara uses to structure the book? Which one are you most interested in and why?
    4. What does Mara say about Srikandi and Srikandi’s role in LGBTQIA+ activism in Indonesia?
    5. How can we draw on ancient myths for queer activism today? What does Mara say about this? What are your thoughts?
    6. Do you have a favourite figure from mythology or legends?
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    56 min
  • “The Queer Victorian Gothic” with Brontë Schiltz

    “The Queer Victorian Gothic” with Brontë Schiltz
    Oct 28 2025
    Are you ready to descend into the weird world of queer Gothic writing, spooky sexology, and gay ghouls? Brontë Schiltz is an expert on all of these and so much more. We speak about the televisual Gothic and about several of Brontë’s favourite Victorian writers, including masc heartthrob Vernon Lee. If you’re into fun facts about blood transfusions and half-human, half-snake main characters, this episode is for you.

    References:
    Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies
    Vernon Lee (1856-1935)
    Ali Smith
    Sarah Waters
    Televisual gothic
    A Ghost Story For Christmas
    M.R. James
    “The Dead Room”
    Mark Gatiss
    The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales
    Chris Baldick
    Nigel Kneale
    Matthew Lewis’ The Monk
    Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
    Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss
    Karl Heinrich Ulrichs’ Manor
    Sexology
    “Plain Reasons Against Sodomy”
    Horace Walpole
    John Addington Symonds
    Dracula
    George Haggerty’s Queer Gothic
    John Singer Sargent
    Clementina Anstruther-Thomson
    Affect studies
    Vernon Lee’s Hauntings
    “A Wicked Voice”
    “Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady”
    Megan Milks
    Ali Smith’s Hotel World
    Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies
    The Horse Hospital
    https://www.thehorsehospital.com/events/miskatonic-televisualgothic

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. What is the Gothic? What did you know about the Gothic before listening and what did you learn from Brontë?
    2. How is the Gothic queer?
    3. Why is the Victorian period an interesting time to look at queerness?
    4. How does Brontë speak about queerness in relation to illness?
    5. What is your favourite spooky story?
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    47 min
  • “Taylor’s Version Pt 2: Showgirls” with Stephanie Burt

    “Taylor’s Version Pt 2: Showgirls” with Stephanie Burt
    Oct 14 2025
    Are you ready to become a showgirl? Poet, scholar, and Swifty extraordinaire Stephanie Burt joins me to talk about Taylor Swift’s musical genius, queer fandom and relationship to femininity. There was simply too much to squeeze into one episode, so make sure to listen to part one first and hear all about the Gaylors, before switching to part two, to learn about Taylor's relationship to femininity, class and race. Stephanie will also tell you why she thought the “You Need To Calm Down” video was a big mistake…

    Follow Stephanie and myself at @notquitehydepark and @queerlitpodcast for even more content!

    References
    Stephanie Burt’s We Are Mermaids (Greywolf Press, 2022)
    Stephanie Burt’s Super Gay Poems (2025)
    Stephanie Burt’s Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift (Basic Books, 2025)
    Stephanie Burt’s “Prayer for Werewolves”
    Poetry Unbound
    John Donne
    Katherine Philips
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    Walt Whitman
    Charlotte Mew
    Sarah Records
    Heavenly
    Tender Trap
    Blueboy
    Ella Darling
    Motown
    Carole King
    Dolly Parton
    “You Belong With Me”
    Red
    Reputation
    Miss Americana (2020)
    Lover
    Rachel Hartman’s Tess of the Road
    Gaylorism
    Gaylors and Hetlors
    “When Emma Falls in Love”
    “All Too Well”
    Joe Jonas
    Taylor Lautner
    Jake Gyllenhaal
    “Back to December”
    John Mayer
    The Life of a Show Girl
    Elizabeth Taylor
    Katharine Hepburn
    Ophelia Hamlet
    Julia Serano
    Frozen
    Mononormativity
    Evermore
    “Tis The Damn Season”
    The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection
    “Christmases When You Were Mine”
    Crass
    Grace Petrie
    Taylearning podcast
    “Clara Bow”
    Britney Spears
    Miley Cyrus
    “You Need to Come Down”
    Adeem the Artist
    Journey to Fearless
    Lara Heimert
    @notquitehydepark
    Rachel Gold’s In the Silences
    Imogen Binnie’s Nevada
    X-Men Gold 30
    D.A. Powell
    Team Dresch’s Captain My Captain
    Slater Kinney
    Heartbreak High
    Sex Education
    Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. How does Stephanie speak about the relationship between poetry, lyrics and music? Where does this become relevant in Taylor Swift’s work?
    2. What does the term ‘Gaylor’ refer to and why are there so many of them?
    3. We speak about sapphic forms in this episode. What makes a form sapphic for you?
    4. What is feminophobia and why could being femme be read as giving up power? How does this relate to trans femininity?
    5. What does Stephanie suggest about the representation of class in the “You Need To Calm Down” video?
    6. Why does Stephanie stress that Taylor knows that she is white? How does Stephanie describe Taylor’s engagement with race and the music of Black women?
    7. Does Taylor’s music speak to you? Why or why not?
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    56 min