How can being closeted or out affect the personal and professional life of a lesbian in academia? This volume, a collection of over thirty personal narratives, explores what it's like to be a lesbian working in a college or university setting. Along with the stories are in-depth analyses of the narratives by other academics. Issues such as race, class and age and how these factors distinguish each individual's place in the academy are examined. The contributors have written from a wide range of experiences--different degrees of outness, various academic disciplines, many geographic locations, and several types of academic settings.

of Vermont. Esther D. Rothblum is Professor of Psychology at the University of Vermont.

PERSONAL NARRATIVES 1. Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander -- Reflections on Being an out Black Lesbian on a Southern Campus 2. Christine Cress -- In, Out, or Somewhere-In-Between 3. Mildred Dickemann -- Coming Out and Coming In: A Kind of Homecoming 4. Penelope Dugan -- The Silent Partner Finds Her Voice 5. Michele J. Eliason -- Out in the Heartland: Lesbians, Academics, and Iowa 6. Kathryn M. Feltery -- Living Outside the Center 7. Maggie Fournier -- Out in the Maine Woods 8. Nanette K. Gartrell -- Out in Academic Psychiatry 9. Barbara W. Gerber -- Becoming a Lesbian in Academia 10. Charlotte L. Goedshce -- Out on a Small Southern Campus 11. Nancy Goldstein -- The Making of a Lesbian Academic, 1974-1995 12. Batya Hyman -- Is Out Now In? A Letter to a First-Year Lesbian Professor 13. Sherrie A. Inness -- Double Vision: Lesbian Twins in Academia 14. Carey Kaplan -- Way Out at Saint Michael's College 15. Sandra M. Ketrow -- Is it Homophobia, Heterosexism, Sexism, or Can I Pass? 16. Kathryn H. Larson -- Creating My Own Security 17. Jan McDonald -- Being Out in Academia: A Year of My Life in Enid, America 18. Carol J. Meoller -- Transforming The Master's Tools: Teaching and Studying Philosophy in Graduate School 19. Akilah Monifa -- Of African Descent: A Three-fers Story 20. Sue Morrow -- This Is the Place 21. Sally O'Driscoll -- Skirmishes in the Borderlands of Identity: Lesbians in Women's Studies 22. Christy M. Ponticelli -- Stray Sheep or Shepherd? Out in the Florida Classroom 23. Patty Reagan -- Lesbians in Utah: Behind the Zion Curtain 24. Amy L. Reynolds and Raechele L. Pope -- Beyond Silence: Life as Academics and a Lesbian Couple 25. Jennifer Rycnega -- The Perils and Pleasures of Being an Out Lesbian Academic: or Speech from the Scaffold 26. Bonnie R. Strickland -- Reading, Writing, and Talking to People 27. Lynn A. Walkiewicz -- Subversive Education 28. Stacy Wolf -- Consenting to Relations: The Personal Pleasure of Power Disparity 29. Anonymous -- My, How Times Have Changed . . . Or Have They?: A Quarter Century as a Lesbian Academic THE LESBIAN EXPERIENCE: AN ANALYSIS30. Penelope Dugan -- Degrees of Freedom 31. Mary Frances Stuck -- The Lesbian Experience: An Analysis RACE, CLASS, AGE: THE QUESTION OF IDENTITY POLITICS 32. Michelle Tokarczyk and Suzanne Sowinska -- Lesbians, Class, and Academia 33. Maria C. Gonzalez -- Women of Color, Sexuality, and the Academy: A Few Thoughts 34. Roxanne Lin -- Steppin' Into and Out of Academia 35. Phyllis Bronstein -- Older Women in AcademiaLESBIAN STUDIES, QUEER STUDIES: THEORIZING THE LESBIAN EXPERIENCE 36. Lynda Goldstein -- Queer Theory: The Monster That is Destroying Lesbianville 37. Sheila Jeffreys -- The Queer Disappearance of Lesbians