Do you know the secret butch nod? In this delightful episode, Dr. Amy Tooth Murphy (Royal Holloway) teaches me about the nod, the queer double take, and all the other sources of queer joy butch lesbians encounter when they brave the streets. Amy lets us enter this magical dyke world via the medium of oral history and explains why queer interactions often remain invisible to straight folk, why it is important to study the butch outside of their natural habitat (the lesbian bar) and why a female flâneur can potentially revamp a problematic masc perspective.

People, works and concepts mentioned:
https://notchesblog.com/
Murphy, Amy Tooth. "Butch on the streets: The butch flâneur and the queering of the city." Contentious Cities. Routledge, 2020. 149-159.
Sally Munt
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D. Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. Routledge, 1993.
Zap
Cook, Matt. Queer Domesticities: Homosexuality and Home Life in Twentieth-Century London. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Flâneur*se
Charles Baudelaire
Walter Benjamin
Palimpsestuous
Bound (1996) by the Wachowski sisters

I butched it up for this one. Did you notice? Tell me on Twitter (@Lena_Mattheis) or on Instagram (@queerlitpodcast) and follow @AmyToothMurphy as well!

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1. What is a butch? How does butchness intersect with fashion, gender and sexual identity?
2. Why do some people criticize butch/femme dynamics and relationships?
3. Please look up historic examples of the ‘zaps’ Amy mentions.
4. What is a flâneur*se? Why is it a problematic concept? How can butch change that?
5. What is oral history? How does Amy conduct research?
6. Amy mentions several literary studies strategies and concepts that are useful in oral history. Which strategies are those?
7. Which queer film scene do you rewind?