"Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon" with Louise Siddons

Join me and Louise Siddons, professor of visual politics par excellence, to learn about Laura Gilpin, the lesbian photographer who spent 30 years creating her book The Enduring Navaho in and with both queer and Navajo community. Louise speaks about the lesbian gaze in Gilpin’s photographs, the lesbian networks of Santa Fe, where Gilpin and her partner lived, and the intersectional methods that Louise brings to writing about these. The thoughtful (and fun) observations Louise shares about Gilpin’s work and voice will stay with you.

Come for the fascinating content, stay for the free writing advice, and get more of both by following @lsiddons.bsky.social and @uni_southampton_wsa (on Instagram). Stay up-to-date about the podcast on Instagram @queerlitpodcast or on Blue Sky (@lenamattheis.bsky.social).  

References:
Louise Siddons’ Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon: Laura Gilpin, Queerness and Navajo Sovereignty (University of Minnesota Press, 2024)
Louise Siddons’ Centering Modernism: J. Jay McVicker and Postwar American Art (University of Oklahoma Press, 2018)
Laura Gilpin’s The Enduring Navaho (University of Texas Press, 1968)
Wanda Corn, professor emerita, Stanford University Clarence Hudson White, photographer (American, 1871-1925)
Elizabeth Forster (public health nurse and Gilpin’s partner, American, 1886-1972)
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Helen Langa, emerita, American University
Lesbian gaze
Herbert Blatchford (Diné (Navajo), dates unknown)
Karen-edis Barzman, scholar in residence, Newberry Library
Heather Love, University of Pennsylvania
Mara Gold, University of Oxford
Laura Gilpin, The Summer Shelter of Old Lady Long Salt (published in The Enduring Navaho, gelatin silver print, 1953)
Bean Yazzie (Diné (Navajo), b. 1978)
Refugee Tales
David Herd, University of St. Andrews
Janice Gould’s Doubters and Dreamers (University of Arizona Press, 2011)    

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.      Who is Laura Gilpin?
2.      Why are lesbian networks relevant in Louise’s thinking about Gilpin’s work?
3.      What do you think a lesbian gaze might be?
4.      Why is intersectionality such an important topic in this episode, although we only explicitly speak about it at the end?
5.      Louise shares some writing advice in the episode. What is your favourite bit of writing advice?