Between Europe and the States
During the 1980s, she became the first German translator of feminist authors Susan Griffin, Audre Lord, Adrienne Rich, and others. In 1984, she accompanied Audre Lorde as a translator on a reading tour of Germany and Switzerland. [8] She translated Gertrude Stein's only mystery novel, Blood on the Dining-Room Floor, into German [9] and created a photo-biography with parallel visual and textual readings of Stein's life, first in German, in 1989, then in English: Gertrude Stein: In Words and Pictures, in 1994. The intent was to make the American language revolutionarily accessible to readers by gathering her best one-liners ("there is no there there") and funniest anecdotes paired with photographic illustrations. The English edition (Algonquin Books, 1994) earned a Lambda Award.
In 1986, when German women took over the Frankfurt opera house to celebrate Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party with a “Fest der 1000 Frauen,” with each woman costumed as one of the 999 women memorialized in the art installation, Stendhal translated for the guest of honor, Judy Chicago. The event was linked to the Women’s Memorial Labyrinth Movement. In a ceremony in Wiesbaden, 2006, to commemorate the 25-year anniversary of the labyrinth, Stendhal set a memorial stone for Gertrude Stein. [10]
American Years
In 1982, a chance meeting at her Paris writing café, Le Rostand, led to a friendship with author Kim Chernin, who became her life companion three and a half years later, when they met again in Paris. After joining Chernin in Berkeley, CA, in 1986, the couple published the first of three coauthored books, Sex and Other Sacred Games, a lesbian version of the Platonic dialogue on love and eros, in 1989. Both were lovers of classical music and opera, and when they heard an unknown singer at Hertz Hall, in Berkeley, in 1991, they saw the performance as the debut of world star. [11] They followed the evolution and fame of the young mezzo soprano, researched her performances at European opera archives, and published a portrait, Cecilia Bartoli: A Passion of Song, in 1997. While Chernin described the singer’s voice and concert performances, Stendhal analyzed the first 10 years of her operatic roles.
In 2012, the photo-biography of Gertrude Stein was republished and Stendhal was invited to speak at the epochal exhibitions, "The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde", at SFMOMA, [12] and the parallel exhibition "Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories", at the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco. Stendhal was also actively engaged in the controversies over Stein's politics during the German Occupation. [13] With lectures and articles she defended Stein from the accusation of collaborating with the Vichy Regime. She followed the “Summer of Stein” in her blog, quotinggertrudestein: Why Do Something If It Can Be Done. [14]
By that time, Stendhal and Chernin had moved to the nature preserve Pt. Reyes Station, an hour north of San Francisco. The couple worked as editors, writing consultants, and counselors. Stendhal volunteered for several years for the Pt. Reyes community giving writing workshops to local seniors. [15]
Psychology
In 1988, Stendhal and Chernin enlisted at New College of California in San Francisco for an MA in Clinical Psychology, and started training as therapists. After three years of internships and passing the written licensing exam, they opted out of the conventional therapy system, choosing a more spiritual path. They obtained a Ph.D in Spiritual Psychology at UIL (the University of Integrative Learning), in 1994, and got ordained as ministers by AIWP, the Association for the Integration of the Whole Person. Stendhal served for several years as a provost for UIL, guiding students through MA and Ph.D. programs in spiritual psychology that rewarded lifelong learning.
In her practice as an interpersonal, existential counselor, Stendhal consulted with psychoanalysts Otto Will and Beulah Parker. She worked with individuals and couples, pursuing her reflections on women and eros with a guidebook for couples: True Secrets of Lesbian Desire: Keeping Sex Alive in Long-Term Relationships (North Atlantic Books, 2003), originally published as Love's Learning Place: Truth as Aphrodisiac in Women's Long-Term Relationships (EdgeWork Books, 2002). Similar ideas of fulfillment in women’s relationships inspired Stendhal and Chernin to publish a “tool kit” for couples in their third collaboration, Lesbian Marriage: A Love & Sex Forever Kit. The book came out in 2014, in time to celebrate their wedding after almost thirty years together.
Almost three decades after leaving Europe for the States, Stendhal published Kiss Me Again, Paris, a memoir she coined a “memoir à clef”. [16] The memoir is intended as a love declaration to the City of Light and a self-ironic portrait of the excess of sexual liberation, the romance of the bohemian life-style, and the creative chaos of the French women’s movement. [17]
Eroticism is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, sculpture, photography, drama, film, music, or literature. It may also be found in advertising. The term may also refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts.
Gertrude Stein was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse, would meet.
Alice Babette Toklas was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century, and the life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein.
Audre Lorde was an American writer, professor, philosopher, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet" who dedicated her life and talents to confronting different forms of injustice, as she believed there could be "no hierarchy of oppressions" among "those who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children."
Dorothy Allison is an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focuses on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She is a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison has won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Anita Cornwell was an American lesbian feminist author. In 1983, she wrote the first collection of essays by an African-American lesbian, Black Lesbian in White America.
Firebrand Books is a publishing house established in 1984 by Nancy K. Bereano, a lesbian and feminist activist, in Ithaca, NY. Karen Oosterhouse, its publisher since 2003, describes Firebrand as "the independent publisher of record for feminist and lesbian fiction and nonfiction," championing "authors whose work has been marginalized: women of color, women coming out of poverty, trans women, the genderqueer, and other underrepresented voices." It is among the many feminist and lesbian publishing houses that grew out of the Women's Press Movement; other presses of that period include Naiad Press, Persephone and Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
Kim Chernin, writer, editor and spiritual counselor, published numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry centered on women's search for self. In the early eighties, The Obsession and the national bestseller The Hungry Self were among the first popular books addressing women's eating disorders. She is best known for her memoir, In My Mother's House: A Daughter's Story, which was one of the first books on mother-daughter relationships. Her memoir was nominated for a Chronicle Critics Award and chosen as Alice Walker’s Favorite Book of the Year in the New York Times, 1983. Her first novel, The Flame Bearers was a New York Times Notable Book.
Founded in Upstate New York in 1978 by Maureen Brady and Judith McDaniel, Spinsters Ink is one of the oldest lesbian feminist publishers in the world. It is currently owned by publisher Linda Hill, who purchased the Spinsters Ink in 2005. Hill also owns Bella Books and Beanpole Books.
The Cancer Journals is a 1980 book of non-fiction by Audre Lorde. It deals with her struggle with breast cancer.
Pat Parker was an African American poet and activist. Both her poetry and her activism drew from her experiences as a Black lesbian feminist. Her poetry spoke about her tough childhood growing up in poverty, dealing with sexual assault, and the murder of a sister. At eighteen, Parker was in an abusive relationship and had a miscarriage after being pushed down a flight of stairs. After two divorces, she came out as a lesbian, "embracing her sexuality" and said she was liberated and "knew no limits when it came to expressing the innermost parts of herself".
Katharina Oguntoye is an Afro-German writer, historian, activist, and poet. She founded the nonprofit intercultural association Joliba in Germany and is perhaps best known for co-editing the book Farbe bekennen with May Ayim and Dagmar Schultz. The English translation of this book was entitled Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. Oguntoye has played an important role in the Afro-German Movement.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is a collection of essential essays and speeches written by Audre Lorde, a writer who focuses on the particulars of her identity: Black woman, lesbian, poet, activist, cancer survivor, mother, and feminist. This collection, now considered a classic volume of Lorde's most influential works of non-fiction prose, has had a groundbreaking impact in the development of contemporary feminist theories. In fifteen essays and speeches dating from 1976 to 1984, Lorde explores the complexities of intersectional identity, while explicitly drawing from her personal experiences of oppression to include sexism, heterosexism, racism, homophobia, classism, and ageism. The book examines a broad range of topics, including love, self-love, war, imperialism, police brutality, coalition building, violence against women, Black feminism, and movements towards equality that recognize and embrace differences as a vehicle for change. With meditative conscious reasoning, Lorde explores her misgivings for the widespread marginalization deeply-rooted in the United States' white patriarchal system, all the while, offering messages of hope. The essays in this landmark collection are extensively taught and have become a widespread area of academic analysis. Lorde's philosophical reasoning that recognizes oppressions as complex and interlocking designates her work as a significant contribution to critical social theory.
The Erotic, is a concept of a source of power and resources that are available within all humans, which draw on feminine and spiritual approaches to introspection. The erotic was first conceptualized by Audre Lorde in her 1978 essay in Sister Outsider, "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power". In the essay, Lorde describes the erotic as "the nurturer or nursemaid of our deepest knowledge" and "a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence". Audre Lorde focuses on the power of the erotic for women, describing how the erotic offers "a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough".
Your Silence Will Not Protect You is a 2017 posthumous collection of essays, speeches, and poems by African American author and poet Audre Lorde. It is the first time a British publisher collected Lorde's work into one volume. The collection focuses on key themes such as: shifting language into action, silence as a form of violence, and the importance of history. Lorde describes herself as a "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet", and addresses the difficulties in communication between Black and white women.
Dagmar Schultz is a German sociologist, filmmaker, publisher and professor.
Feminist poetry is inspired by, promotes, or elaborates on feminist principles and ideas. It might be written with the conscious aim of expressing feminist principles, although sometimes it is identified as feminist by critics in a later era. Some writers are thought to express feminist ideas even if the writer was not an active member of the political movement during their era. Many feminist movements, however, have embraced poetry as a vehicle for communicating with public audiences through anthologies, poetry collections, and public readings.
Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought is a nonfiction debut anthology edited by Briona Simone Jones. It includes essays, poetry, and other writings by Black lesbian feminists such as Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke, and Bettina Love. The book was published by The New Press on February 1, 2021. The book received the Judy Grahn Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Anthology.
Gloria Ida Joseph was a Crucian-American academic, writer, educator, and activist. She was a self-identified radical Black feminist lesbian writer who synthesized art and activism in her work. Joseph's scholarship centered race, gender, sexuality, and class. She is known for her pioneering work on Black feminism and her activism on issues concerning Black women across the diaspora, including in the South Africa, Germany, and Caribbean.
