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Julia Penelope

{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2022}}

{{Short description|American linguist, author, and philosopher (1941–2013)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Julia Penelope

| image =

| image_size =

| caption =

| birth_name = Julia Penelope Stanley

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1941|6|19|mf=yes}}

| birth_place = Miami, Florida

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2013|1|19|1941|6|19|mf=yes}}

| occupation = American author, linguist, academic, philosopher; lgbt and feminist activist

| nationality = American

}}

Julia Penelope (June 19, 1941 – January 19, 2013) was an American linguist, author, and philosopher. She was part of an international movement of critical thinkers on lesbian and feminist issues. A self-described "white, working-class, fat butch dyke who never passed," she started what she called "rabble rousing" when she was a young woman.{{cite web|last=Brownworth|first=Victoria|title=In Remembrance: Julia Penelope, Lesbian Theorist|url=http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/rem/02/01/in-remembrance-julia-penelope-lesbian-theorist|website=Lambda Literary Foundation|date=February 1, 2013|access-date=February 22, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181022073633/http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/rem/02/01/in-remembrance-julia-penelope-lesbian-theorist/|archive-date=October 22, 2018|url-status=dead}}

Early life and education

Julia Penelope Stanley was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, to Frederick William Stanley and his wife, Frances.{{cite web|title=Julia Penelope|url=http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=8733|website=OurCampaigns|date=June 18, 2004|access-date=February 22, 2013}}

In 1959, she was asked to leave Florida State University in Tallahassee because of her lesbianism. This was around the time that the Johns Commission was harassing gay faculty and students at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, but she was not interviewed by that commission. She transferred to the University of Miami, a private university, where she was required to live off campus. Eight weeks later, two gay male friends were rehearsing a college production of Lysistrata at her apartment and stayed overnight. A neighbor reported this to the university, and she was expelled for having men in her room. She then earned a BA in English and linguistics from City College of New York in 1966, followed by graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin where she received a doctoral degree in English in 1971.{{cite book|editor1-last=Zimmerman|editor1-first=Bonnie|title=Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia|date=2000|edition=1st|volume=1 (Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures)|pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofle00bzim/page/577 577]–578|chapter=Penelope, Julia by Susan J. Wolfe|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofle00bzim|url-access=registration|publisher=Garland Publishing|isbn=0-8153-1920-7}}

Career

Her first teaching position was at the University of Georgia in Athens, in 1968. She went on to teach for eleven years at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where she was passed over for promotions because her research on lesbians was deemed "too narrow". After relocating to Texas, she pursued a career as a freelance lexicographer, and a copy editor for commercial presses.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

=Activism=

An activist and an organizer, Penelope attended the first conference of the Gay Academic Union in 1973 at the City College of New York. She was a delegate to the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977, and she participated in the planning meetings that led to the founding of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. She founded several activist groups, including the "Lincoln Legion of Lesbians" and "Lesbians for Lesbians."{{cite news|last1=Baim|first1=Tracy|title=PASSAGES Author Julia Penelope dead at 71|url=http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/PASSAGES-Author-Julia-Penelope-dead-at-71/41298.html|work=Windy City Times|date=January 24, 2013|access-date=February 22, 2013}} She was one of the first scholars to teach women's studies courses, including Twentieth-Century Lesbian Novels and Feminist Literary Criticism.

In 1988, she co-edited with Sarah Lucia Hoagland the first anthology on lesbian separatism, For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology. As a lesbian separatist, Penelope was controversial among lesbians. According to her biography in Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia (2000), she became disheartened by lesbian infighting and withdrew from lesbian writing.{{cite magazine|last=Ring|first=Trudy|title=Lesbian Author-Scholar Julia Penelope Dead at 71|url=http://www.advocate.com/society/obituaries/2013/01/24/lesbian-author-scholar-julia-penelope-dead-71|magazine=The Advocate|date=January 24, 2013|access-date=February 22, 2013}}

Death

Julia Penelope, aged 71, died on January 19, 2013, in Texas.

Works

  • {{cite book | last1 = Penelope | first1 = Julia | last2 = Wolfe | first2 = Susan | title = The Coming Out Stories | year = 1980 | publisher = Persephone Press | isbn = 9780930436032 | url = https://archive.org/details/comingoutstories0000unse }}
  • {{Cite journal | last1 = Penelope | first1 = Julia | last2 = Hoagland | first2 = Sarah Lucia | author-link2 = Sarah Hoagland | title = Lesbianism, Sexuality and Power: The Patriarchy, Violence and Pornography | journal = Sinister Wisdom | volume = 15 | location = Amherst, Massachusetts | date = 1980 | url = http://www.sinisterwisdom.org/issues |oclc=70961358 }}
  • {{cite book | last1 = Penelope | first1 = Julia | last2 = Hoagland | first2 = Sarah Lucia | author-link2 = Sarah Hoagland | title = For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology | publisher = Onlywomen Press Ltd | location = London | year = 1988 | isbn = 9780906500286 | url = https://archive.org/details/forlesbiansonly00sara }}
  • {{cite book | last1 = Penelope | first1 = Julia | last2 = Wolfe | first2 = Susan | title= The Original Coming Out Stories | year = 1989 | publisher = Crossing Press | isbn = 9780895943392 }}
  • {{cite book | last1 = Penelope | first1 = Julia | last2 = Grey | first2 = Morgan | others = illustrated by Allison Bechdel | title= Found Goddesses: Asphalta to Viscera | year = 1989 | publisher = New Victoria Publishers | isbn = 9780934678186 }}
  • {{cite book | last1 = Penelope | first1 = Julia | last2 = Valentine | first2 = Sarah | title= Finding The Lesbians | url = https://archive.org/details/findinglesbiansppene | url-access = registration | year = 1990 | publisher = Crossing Press | isbn = 9780895944276 }}
  • {{cite book | last = Penelope | first = Julia | title= Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers' Tongues | year = 1990 | publisher = Teachers College Press | isbn = 9780807762448 }}
  • {{cite book | last = Penelope | first = Julia | title= International Feminist Fiction | year = 1992 | publisher = Crossing Press | isbn = 9780895945679 }}
  • {{cite book | last = Penelope | first = Julia | title= Call Me Lesbian: Lesbian Lives, Lesbian Theory | url = https://archive.org/details/callmelesbianles00pene | url-access = registration | year = 1992 | publisher = Crossing Press | isbn = 9780895944962 }}
  • {{cite book | last1 = Penelope | first1 = Julia | last2 = Wolfe | first2 = Susan | title = Sexual Practice/Textual Theory: Lesbian Cultural Criticism | year = 1993 | publisher = Blackwell Publishers | isbn = 9781557861016 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/sexualpracticete0000unse }}
  • {{cite book | last1 = Penelope | first1 = Julia | last2 = Wolfe | first2 = Susan | title= Lesbian Culture: An Anthology | url = https://archive.org/details/lesbianculturean00penerich | url-access = registration | year = 1993 | publisher = Crossing Press | isbn = 9780895945914 }}
  • {{cite book | last = Penelope | first = Julia | title = Out of the Class Closet: Lesbians Speak | year = 1994 | publisher = Crossing Press | isbn = 9780895947048 | url = https://archive.org/details/outofclasscloset00pene_0 }}
  • {{cite book | last = Penelope | first = Julia | title= Crossword Puzzles for Women | year = 1995 | isbn = 9780895947918 }}
  • {{cite book | last = Penelope | first = Julia | title= Flinging Wide the Eyed Universe: Poems by Julia Penelope | year = 1998 | isbn = 9781884540349 }}

References

{{reflist}}

External links

  • [https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/penelope/ Julia Penelope Papers, ca. 1986-1999] at Rubenstein Library, Duke University Libraries
  • [https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/resources/5344 Julia Penelope research files on the Language of the Homosexual Community study] at Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives Repository
  • [http://www.lesbianpoetryarchive.org/juliapenelope Julia Penelope] at Lesbian Poetry Archive
  • [http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n88012744.html Julia Penelope] at Library of Congress
  • [https://www.librarything.com/author/penelopejulia Julia Penelope] at LibraryThing
  • [https://vimeo.com/ondemand/lesbianaeng Lesbiana – A Parallel Revolution by Myriam Fougère] at Vimeo

{{Lesbian feminism}}

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Category:1941 births

Category:2013 deaths

Category:American feminist writers

Category:American anti–Iraq War activists

Category:Lesbian feminists

Category:Lesbian separatists

Category:American lesbian writers

Category:American LGBTQ rights activists

Category:Texas Greens

Category:University of Nebraska faculty