Julia Penelope

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.

Early life and education

Julia Penelope Stanley was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, to Frederick William Stanley and his wife, Frances.

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.

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.

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." 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.

Death

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

Works

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

References

External links

Julia Penelope Papers, ca. 1986-1999
at Rubenstein Library, Duke University Libraries

Julia Penelope research files on the Language of the Homosexual Community study
at Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives Repository

Julia Penelope
at Lesbian Poetry Archive


at Library of Congress

Julia Penelope
at LibraryThing

''Lesbiana – A Parallel Revolution'' by Myriam Fougère
at Vimeo

{{DEFAULTSORT:Penelope, Julia
1941 births
2013 deaths
American feminist writers
American anti–Iraq War activists
Lesbian feminists
Lesbian separatists
American lesbian writers
American LGBTQ rights activists
Texas Greens
University of Nebraska faculty