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Queer Lit

By: Lena Mattheis
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  • Summary

  • Queer Lit is a podcast about LGBTQIA+* literature and culture. In each episode, literary studies researcher Lena Mattheis talks to an expert in the field of queer studies. Topics include lesbian literature, inclusive pronouns and language, gay history, trans and non-binary novels, intersectionality and favourite queer films, series or poems.

    New episode every other week!

    queerlitpodcast@gmail.com
    https://lenamattheis.wordpress.com/queerlit
    Twitter and Instagram: @queerlitpodcast

    Music by geovanebruny from Pixabay
    Lena Mattheis
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Episodes
  • “Trans in Translation” with Alberto Poza

    “Trans in Translation” with Alberto Poza
    Apr 30 2024
    Have you read the iconic Taiwanese novel The Membranes by Chi Ta-Wei? If so, in which language? Alberto has crafted the fabulous Spanish translation of this beautifully genderweird text and joins me to speak about the opportunities and challenges the highly gendered structures of Spanish offer for this. If you have ever wondered which pronoun or gendered inflection to use for a cyborg and what language might best describe a trans machine, this is the episode for you.

    Learn more about Alberto’s work on Instagram @aiweip or on Twitter (@Albertop_p) and consider giving @queerlitpodcast a follow as well.

    References:
    Queer and Trans Philologies
    Diane Watt
    Chi Ta-Wei’s The Membranes
    Ari Larissa Heinrichs
    Queer Ecologies and Environmental Writing (module)
    https://lenamattheis.files.wordpress.com/2023/12/module-handbook-queer-ecologies.pdf
    Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun
    Jack Halberstam
    Paul Preciado
    Alana Portero’s Bad Habit (La Mala Costumbre, 2023)

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. Have you ever read a queer text in different languages? Do you experience gender differently depending on language?
    2. Why do we gender some machines and not others?
    3. Alberto comments on how Anglophone readers tend to focus on the trans elements of The Membranes. Why do you think they stand out to Anglophone readers?
    4. Alberto comments of generic masculine, generic feminine and genderneutral forms in Spanish. How do you think translations into other languages have dealt with this dilemma and how would you translate this?
    5. If you could speak any language fluently, which one would you choose and why?
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    18 mins
  • “Knight as a Gender” with Mabel Mundy

    “Knight as a Gender” with Mabel Mundy
    Apr 16 2024
    If you could pick a gender, any gender, which one would that be, and why would it 1000% be knight? In this special minisode, I get to answer that question with Mabel Mundy, who shares fascinating insights into the genderfuckery of chivalric romance and crossdressing knights. Tune in now, to learn more about why gender ambiguity clearly is, and has always been, super hot, and how this plays out in Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney’s writing.

    If you too are picturing Brienne of Tarth at the bathhouse when hearing about Britomart, follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and let me know in the comments. To learn more about Mabel’s work, follow her on Twitter at @mabelcjmundy.

    A big, big thank you to the brilliant team of Queer and Trans Philologies at Cambridge University for creating this space!

    References:

    Petition: https://www.change.org/p/support-our-surrey-campaign?

    This is not an isolated issue! See this list of current large-scale UK HE redundancies: https://qmucu.org/qmul-transformation/uk-he-shrinking/

    https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/39800/#call-for-papers
    Queer and Trans Philologies
    University of Cambridge
    CRASSH @crasshlive (Instagram)
    Crossdressing
    Genderfuckery
    Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene
    Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia
    Margaret Cavendish’s The Covenant of Pleasure
    Chivalric Romance
    Britomart
    Malecasta
    Bradamante
    Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso
    Diane Watt
    The Redcrosse Knight
    Una

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. What forms of genderfuckery does Mabel talk about? If you are not familiar with the term, please look it up and/or check out the Queer Lit episode with Nick Cherryman.
    2. Why is Mabel particularly interested in doing research on chivalric romances?
    3. Mabel comments on how crossdressing knights can reveal something about the social category of gender that is possibly more important than their individual gender. Would you agree with that? Why or why not?
    4. Do you have a favourite knight?
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    15 mins
  • “Gendered Bodies and Narrative Form” with Chiara Pellegrini

    “Gendered Bodies and Narrative Form” with Chiara Pellegrini
    Apr 2 2024
    How does a queer, trans or intersex body take shape in a narrative? Dr Chiara Pellegrini is here to help us better understand how narrative form, point of view, and embodiment interact in contemporary storytelling – whether that be in novels, short stories or reality TV. We speak about problematic narrative tropes of trans narration, such as the ‘gender reveal’, but also about how some narrative voices protect their characters from voyeuristic intrusions. I’m also absolutely fascinated by Chiara’s take on Barbie.

    Don’t delay, listen today! To learn more about Chiara’s work, follow her on Twitter @chiarapg4 and, while you’re at it, stay in touch with the podcast on Instagram @queerlitpodcast.

    References:

    Pellegrini, Chiara. Trans Narrators: First-Person Form and the Gendered Body in Contemporary Literature. Edinburgh University Press, 2025.

    Gillis, Stacy and Chiara Pellegrini (eds.) The Cultural Politics of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Special Issue of Feminist Theory 25.4 (2024).

    Mejeur, Cody and Chiara Pellegrini (eds.) Trans/forming Narrative Studies. Special Issue of Narrative 32.2 (2024).

    Pellegrini, Chiara. ‘Anticipating the Plot: Overdetermining Heteronormative Destiny on the Twenty-First- Century Screen’, Textual Practice (2022): 1-23.

    Pellegrini, Chiara. ‘“Declining to Describe”: Intersex Narrators and Textual Visibility’. Interdisciplinary and Global Perspectives on Intersex. Ed. Megan Walker (Palgrave, 2022): 49-64.

    ISSN International Society for the Study of Narrative

    https://www.thenarrativesociety.org/2024-conference-1

    Narrative for Social Justice

    https://www.thenarrativesociety.org/n4sj

    Jay Prosser’s Second Skins

    Travis Alabanza’s None of the Above

    Calvin Gimpelevic’s Invasions: Stories

    Susan Lanser “Queering Narrative Voice” Textual Practice 32.6 (2018)

    Sara Taylor’s The Lauras

    Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox

    Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex

    Marquis Bey’s Black Trans Feminism

    Hida Viloria - Born Both: An Intersex Life (Hachette 2017)

    Hannah Gadsby’s The Gender Agenda

    Dahlia Belle (the comic Lena mentions)

    Cody Mejeur

    Casey Plett and Cat Fitzpatrick’s Meanwhile, Elsewhere

    The Ultimatum

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. How might narrative point of view affect trans and intersex narratives? Why do you think the first person has been a particularly popular point of view in trans texts?
    2. What does ‘embodiment’ mean when it comes to narration?
    3. Chiara suggests that narratology (the study of how we tell stories) can learn a lot from trans narrative forms. What, for example, can we learn from a trans perspective?
    4. We speak about problematic narratives that conceal trans or queer bodies, only to reveal them to readers or viewers later on. Can you think of an example for this type of narrative? Why would this be harmful?
    5. How do you feel about some of the recent queer reality TV shows?
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    45 mins
Art Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences
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