Esther Newton | |
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Born | 1940 (age 84–85) New York, New York, U.S. |
Education | |
Occupation(s) | Author, anthropologist, professor |
Employers |
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Known for | Anthropological studies of drag queens and ethnographies of the LGBT community |
Esther Newton (born 1940, New York City) is an American cultural anthropologist who performed pioneering work on the ethnography of lesbian and gay communities in the United States.
Newton studied history at the University of Michigan and received her BA with distinction in 1962 before starting graduate work in anthropology at the University of Chicago under David M. Schneider. [1]
Her PhD dissertation, "The drag queens; a study in urban anthropology" (1968), examined the experiences, social interactions, and culture of drag queens, or (mostly gay-identified) men who dressed and performed as women in various kinds of theatrical settings or as an expression/performance of their sexual identity. Later published in several articles and as Mother camp: female impersonators in America (1972), Newton's work represented the first major anthropological study of a homosexual community in the United States, and laid some of the groundwork for theorists such as Judith Butler, who would later explore the performative dimensions of sex and gender roles. [1]
Her second book, Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty years in America's first gay and lesbian town (1993), used oral history and ethnographic methods to document the changing dynamics of Cherry Grove, a beach resort on Fire Island, New York, and one of the oldest and most visible predominantly lesbian and gay male communities in the United States.
Newton is currently Professor Emerita of Anthropology and Kempner Distinguished Research Professor at Purchase College, State University of New York. She is also a lecturer in Women's Studies and American Culture at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Newton identifies as lesbian. [2] She is in a long-term relationship with lesbian-feminist performance artist Holly Hughes. [3] They married in 2015. [4]
Newton is the daughter of psychotherapist Saul B. Newton. [5]
A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and have been a part of gay culture.
Femme is a term traditionally used to describe a lesbian woman who exhibits a feminine identity or gender presentation. While commonly viewed as a lesbian term, alternate meanings of the word also exist with some non-lesbian individuals using the word, notably some gay men and bisexuals. Some non-binary and transgender individuals also identify as lesbians using this term.
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A drag show is a form of entertainment performed by drag artists impersonating men or women, typically in a bar or nightclub as a burlesque-style, adult-themed nightclub event.
A stone butch is a lesbian who displays female butchness or traditional "masculinity" and who does not allow their genitals to be touched during sexual activity, as opposed to a stone femme.
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John D'Emilio is a professor emeritus of history and of women's and gender studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He taught at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He earned his B.A. from Columbia College and Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1982, where his advisor was William Leuchtenburg. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1998 and National Endowment for the Humanities fellow in 1997 and also served as Director of the Policy Institute at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force from 1995 to 1997.
Don Kulick is a Swedish anthropologist and linguist who is the professor of anthropology at Uppsala University. Kulick works within the frameworks of both cultural and linguistic anthropology, and has carried out field work in Papua New Guinea, Brazil, Italy and Sweden. Kulick is also known for his extensive fieldwork on the Tayap people and their language in Gapun village of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea.
Holly Hughes is an American lesbian performance artist.
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Butch is a lesbian who exhibits a masculine identity or gender presentation.
The Jewel Box Lounge, also known as the Jewel Box, was a nightclub & lounge opened by John Tuccillo in 1948. Located on the historic Troost Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri it was one of the earliest establishments in the area to feature drag queens and impersonators as entertainers. At its peak, the Jewel Box Lounge was one of the largest and best-known drag nightclubs in the United States.