2. Nachtwoud van Djuna Barnes
Op Idahot 2026 lanceren we onze tweede aflevering, waarin we Nachtwoud van Djuna Barnes bespreken, een lesbische klassieker over de passionele en destructieve liefde tussen Nora Flood en Robin Vote in het Parijs van de jaren 1920. We bespreken
- Het boek, onze podcast en queer boekenclub, inleidend,
- De korte inhoud van het boek (1'30")
- Baron Felix, de heteroman (5'9")
- Robin Vote, schepsel van de nacht (9'48")
- Moederschap en kinderloosheid (13'59")
- Gender en andere constructen (17'14")
- Parijs in de jaren '20 (22'38")
- Djuna Barnes, lesbienne tegen wil en dank? (27'51")
- Fascisme, vroeger en nu (34'26")
- De modernistische roman (39'10")
- Mag dit boek in onze boekenkast blijven staan? (41'33")
Een kleine maar belangrijke correctie is dat we spreken over Cabaret, een verhaal dat zich niet in Parijs maar Berlijn afspeelt.
Meer informatie en bronnen:
On Djuna Barnes
Other Work
- The Book of Repulsive Women
- A Night Among The Horses.
- Ladies Almanack. Chronicles of Paris lesbian life, o.a. Natalie Barney.
- Ryder, autobiographical novel.
- The Antiphon, bitter book about hate of her family.
A fragment from a sapphic poem 'Seen From the "L"'
SO she stands—nude—stretching dully
Two amber combs loll through her hair
A vague molested carpet pitches
Down the dusty length of stair.
She does not see, she does not care
It's always there.
On Nightwood
Podcast Lit Century
On Dr. O'Connor as a trans character
The First Trans Woman in Western Fiction. ‘Nightwood’s Dr. Matthew O’Connor was gender dysphoric. https://medium.com/the-awl/the-first-trans-woman-in-western-fiction-731fd7c13b85
Olivia Scott Harris. (2020) “What is this thing, Lord?”: Matthew O’Connor and the Queer Theology of the Catholic Church in Nightwood (1937). https://www.apollonejournal.org/apollon-journal/what-is-this-thing-lord
On lesbian relationships
Harker, Jaime. PARIS WAS A LESBIAN. Women’s Liberation and the Re-Queering of Modernism.
Susana S. Martins (1999). Gender Trouble and Lesbian Desire in Djuna Barnes's "Nightwood". In: A Journal of Women Studies , 1999, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1999), pp. 108-126 Published by: University of Nebraska Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3347225
On antisemitism
In Search of “the Jew” in Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230391673_4
On a Freudian reading
Jane Marcus (1989). Laughing at Leviticus: "Nightwood" as Woman's Circus Epic. In: Cultural Critique, Autumn, 1989, No. 13, and The Construction of Gender and Modes of Social Division (Autumn, 1989), pp. 143-190, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1354272
On Paris in the 20ies
Here are some pictures of queer women of la rive gauche à Paris.
Some of their names
- Eileen Gray, modern designer
- Lee Miller, war photographer.
- Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith, jazz musician and dancer, owner of Chez Bricktop.
- Josephine Baker, African-American dancer and singer
- Colette, writer.
- Ratclyffe Hall, writer.
- Romaine Brooks, painter
- Marie Laurencin, painter, modernist
- Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, writer and hosts of a literary salon.
- Natalie Clifford Barney and Renée Vivien, hosts of a literary salon.
- Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier, owners of book shops (Shakespeare and Company and La Maison des Amis des Livres)
- Janet Flanner or Genet, reporter.
The documentary Paris Was A Woman.
De vele levens van Gertrude Stein.
Gertrude Stein documentary: When This You See Remember Me.
Bad Gays podcast. Gertrude Stein. Joe Carstairs. Radclyffe Hall.
Yesterqueers about Joe Carstairs.
Book: The Story of Art without Men.
