It was 1914 and the world was at war.
But while everyone’s eyes were fixed on the battles in Europe, two young women realized, as they pulled soldiers out of the battle-scarred trenches together, that they were attracted to one another.
This is the kind of history that University of Manchester professor Laura Doan is interested in: not just people and their role in history but also their sexuality and its effect on that history.
She came to UNC on Monday afternoon to speak to a group of students and professors in the Donovan Lounge of Greenlaw Hall about the importance of sexuality in history and literature.
English professor Ruth Salvaggio hosted Doan’s lecture, which occurred during Gay and Lesbian History Month, to spark discussion about the ways historians and literary critics have treated homosexual literature over the years.
Sexual history, she said, is no less important than any other field of history.
“It’s relevant in the same way all history is relevant,” she said. “To miss sexuality is to essentially lie.”
Among the figures Doan discussed in her lecture was Anne Lister, who wrote over 30,000 diary entries confessing her lesbian orientation, and is widely acknowledged among scholars as the first modern literary lesbian.
When the British Broadcasting Corporation made Lister’s diary into a television drama called “The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister,” Doan said the producers overexaggerated her character to attract viewers, regardless of what the truth actually was.
