We are back from our hiatus with an episode on the bisexual Israeli poet, Yona Wallach. Join us as we visit Tel Aviv's 1960s gay scene, learn about gender in Hebrew, and read some of Yona's most controversial poetry. Sources
This is the second part of our two-part episode on Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde! We're talking about the latter half of Oscar's life, including the wittiest comedy in the English language, the tumultuous relationship between Oscar and Alfred Douglas, and Oscar's trial and imprisonment. Listen to Part 1 here .
It's time for our much-anticipated episode on Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde! Today we're covering the first half of Oscar's life, from his birth in 1854 to the publication of his homoerotic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1891. Tune in to hear about his rise to notoriety, his scandalous fashion choices, and whether he and Walt Whitman ever had sex.
Today's episode is on the erotic pottery of the Moche people of 1st to 7th century Peru. Tune in for skeleton sex, dragging bad scholarship, and the possibility of a third gender in ancient Peru. Sources [Image source: Janusz Z. Wołoszyn and Katarzyna Piwowar's "Sodomites, Siamese Twins, and Scholars: Same-Sex Relationships in Moche Art" in American Anthropologist, Vol. 117, No. 2 (2015), p.288]...
Today's episode is on the 19th-century Chinese poet and playwright Wú Zǎo. We'll be reading queer love poetry, talking about gender, and discussing the relatable experience of drinking wine while reading sad books. Sources [Image: text from Wú Zǎo's play Qiáo Yǐng]
Today's episode is on Billy Tipton, well-known jazz player and transgender man. Tune in for a man who could play the piano and the saxophone simultaneously, a nude portrait featuring an erupting volcano, and more dogs than you could possibly wish for!
Today's Queer as Fiction episode is on the famous 1982 epistolary novel by Alice Walker, The Color Purple. Join us for a discussion about intersectionality, what qualifies as good representation and the critical reaction to the novel since its publication.
What does it take for a painting to ruin a friendship, initiate a court case, and change the Australian art world forever? Tune in to this episode on the Australian artist William Dobell and his controversial win of the 1943 Archibald Prize for portraiture to find out! (Image: William Dobell, Self Portrait, 1932.)
This week we have our first ever collaborative episode, where we meet with our fellow queer history podcast History is Gay to compare queer slang in Australia and the USA. Join us as we talk about lavender linguistics, Gilette blades, and our favourite ways to say we're queer. You can find History is Gay on Facebook , Tumblr and Twitter , and check out more of their episodes on their website , or wherever you find your podcasts....
In this episode, we're talking about the early-20th-century Spanish poet and playwright, Federico García Lorca. Join us as we discuss Federico's relationship with Salvador Dalí, 19-year-old Jesus Christ's fights with his parents, and the mystery surrounding Federico's death.
Today's Queer as Fiction episode is on the 2007 novel and 2017 movie Call Me By Your Name. Join us as we chat about Jewish identity, whether or not this is really a gay movie after all and, of course, the controversial age gap. Please note that this episode contains swearing in a quote - our apologies for not including it in the content warnings! Sources
Today's episode is on the godmother of rock and roll, gospel singer Rosetta Tharpe. Join us to learn about Rosetta's rise to fame, mad guitar skills, and the invention of everything from the tour bus to stadium rock. Also, Queer As Fact has a sponsor! Have a listen to pick up a discount code for Sudio Sweden headphones. Transcript available here Sources...
Today's episode is on the story of Pope Joan, the 9th-century woman who disguised herself as a man and became pope. Tune in for popes, antipopes, medieval Catholic pageantry, and the truth about Pope Joan. Sources (Image: Pope Joan in papal garb holding an infant in her arms. Engraving from Hartman Schedel's Chronica Universalis or Nuremberg Chronicle, published in 1493 by Anton Koberger. Via Wikimedia Commons.)...
Today's episode is on Horace Walpole, 18th century man of letters and writer of the world's first gothic novel. This episode features a number of firsts for Queer As Fact, including our first possible asexual person, and the first Queer As Fact Historical Goth-Off! Transcript available here Sources (Image: Portrait of Horace Walpole by Pierre Subleyras, via Wikimedia Commons)...
For our second episode of Queer as Fiction, we'll be talking about Mike Nichols' 1996 comedy film 'The Birdcage'. Join us as we discuss gender performance, gay fatherhood and unnecessary sequels.
Today's episode is about the life of Sofya Parnok, an early 20th century Russian poet who wrote openly about her relationships with women, owned a pet monkey, and died surrounded by her loving girlfriends. Transcript available here Sources
Today's mini-episode is on Dutch World War II resistance fighter Willem Arondeus. Learn about his life as an artist, incredibly brave efforts to combat the Nazi regime and the origins of his famous last words. Sources
Today we have our first episode on an Indigenous American two-spirit person - Crow warrior and craftsperson Osh-Tisch, whose batée gender was not only recognised but respected and supported by their community. Tune in to learn about the Crow understanding of gender, the best poker player in the region, and the Battle of the Rosebud, in which Osh-Tisch fought alongside the female warrior The Other Magpie and earnt the name Finds-Them-And-Kills-Them. Transcript available here. Sources...
Today's episode is on the publisher and bookseller Sylvia Beach. Learn about the delightful history of her bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, Sylvia's instrumental role in publishing James Joyce's Ulysses, and her fateful meeting with her long term partner Adrienne Monnier. Sources
Today's episode is on male sexuality in Ancient Rome! Listen on for ancient same sex marriages, dirty Latin poetry, and the wittiest retort you'll hear all week. Also: some weird facts about hyenas! (Note: the image above is an 1827 sculpture by French artist Jean-Baptiste Roman on the theme of Ancient Roman sexuality. It's not a genuine Roman work.) Transcript available here Sources...
Today's surprise episode is an ad we produced with CAMP Magazine, the University of Melbourne's newest autonomous publication for queer people. Listen for some new poetry from the unimelb graduate and bisexual labour activist Lesbia Harford! Listen to our other episodes to learn more about Lesbia Harford , or, as mentioned in this episode, writer Mary Shelley , Moomins-creator Tove Jansson , or queer women in medieval Arab literature ....
Unlike sex between men, sex between women was never illegal in Britain. Could it have been because Queen Victoria refused to believe that it could happen? Find out in the second of our mini episodes, exploring myths and shorter stories from queer history. Sources
Today's episode is our second and final look at the life of the activist, lawyer, priest and poet, Pauli Murray. Learn about his involvement with the landmark women's rights case Reed v. Reed, the mischief he got up to as a self-described "pixie priest", and how his transgender identity has been handled (and mishandled) by scholars. Transcript available here . Sources If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, check it out here!...
Today's episode is the first of Queer as Fiction, a series in which we talk to you about the intersection of the historical and the queer in the media. We'll kick things off with J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 lesbian vampire novella Carmilla, and talk about just how gay it actually is, the pop culture it has influenced and, apparently, 300 years of Anglo-Irish conflict.
Today's episode is on Pauli Murray, the activist, lawyer, poet and priest who did so much with his life that it's going to take us two episodes to fit it all. In this first half we're covering the period from 1910 to 1965, including Pauli's time at university, and his work as a lawyer and activist fighting segregation and sexism in the USA. We'll be talking about everything from his ground-breaking theories on intersectionality to his cross-country adventures dressed as a boy-scout, and featurin...
Today we're bringing you the first of our mini episodes which will come out on the 8th of every month! In them, we'll explore shorter stories as well as either confirming or debunking myths from queer history. Today's episode examines whether Swedish people called in gay to work as protest when homosexuality was classified as an illness in Sweden. Sources
In today's episode we're talking about Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Tune in for adventures in gothic horror, the truth behind whether Mary really lost her virginity on her mother's grave, and of course her rarely-discussed relationships with women. Transcript available here. Sources
We have a special episode today, featuring an exciting announcement about what's coming up for Queer as Fact in the future! We're also talking about the phrase "friends of Dorothy", how it baffled the US navy, and what it really means. Transcript available here.
We have a special guest this episode - Jessie has just completed her thesis on queer film in Australia, and talks with us about its birth, its development, and the role it has played in Australian gay rights movements. Featuring gay film festivals, censors embarrassing themselves, and the first Australian Pride. Transcript available here. Image: Still from the film Adam (1975)
In this episode we are talking about Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians elected in the USA. Tune in for incredibly theatrical political campaigns, an even more dramatic love letter, and recordings of speeches from the man himself. Transcript available here
