Early life and career
Born in 1947,Bonnie Zimmerman grew up in a secular Jewish family in the suburbs of Chicago. [1] She became one of the founding members of the Women's Studies College at State University of New York Buffalo in 1970. [1] She was offered a temporary position as a lecturer at San Diego State University (SDSU) in their Women's Studies program (the first in the country) and used this opportunity to begin teaching lesbian literature in 1979. [1] In 1983,she became Professor of Women's Studies at SDSU. [1] She was president of the National Women's Studies Association from 1998 to 1999,and acted as the Women's Studies department chair at SDSU from 1986 to 1992 and again from 1995 to 1997. [1] Stemming from her background,Zimmerman said,"No matter how the social and academic landscape changes,and no matter that I am now a university administrator,I will always be a child of the '60s and '70s:a new-left,radical-feminist,counterculture,dyke intellectual". [2]
She credits her 1981 article "What Has Never Been:An Overview of Lesbian Feminist Literary Criticism" [3] as the primary source that created her reputation as a pre-eminent lesbian and feminist scholar of her day. [1] It was later anthologized in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism . [4]
In "A Lesbian-Feminist Journey Through Queer Nation" (2007) she states,"Although I do not think I will ever publish much queer or gay and lesbian scholarship,I have also been instrumental in beginning LGBT studies on my campus,as I was in beginning Lesbian Studies within Women's Studies during the 1970s." [2]
Zimmerman retired from teaching in 2010. [1]
Zimmerman's papers are held in the Special Collections and University Archives of San Diego State University. [5]
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