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Butch Heroes

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A serious—and seriously successful—queer history recovery project.” —Publishers Weekly

Katherina Hetzeldorfer, tried “for a crime that didn't have a name” (same sex sexual relations) and sentenced to death by drowning in 1477; Charles aka Mary Hamilton, publicly whipped for impersonating a man in eighteenth-century England; Clara, aka “Big Ben,” over whom two jealous women fought in 1926 New York: these are just three of the lives that the artist Ria Brodell has reclaimed for queer history in Butch Heroes. Brodell offers a series of twenty-eight portraits of forgotten but heroic figures, each accompanied by a brief biographical note. They are individuals who were assigned female at birth but whose gender presentation was more masculine than feminine, who did not want to enter into heterosexual marriage, and who often faced dire punishment for being themselves.

Brodell's detailed and witty paintings are modeled on Catholic holy cards, slyly subverting a religious template. The portraits and the texts offer intriguing hints of lost lives: cats lounge in the background of domestic settings; one of the figures is said to have been employed variously as “a prophet, a soldier, or a textile worker”; another casually holds a lit cigarette. Brodell did extensive research for each portrait, piecing together a life from historical accounts, maps, journals, paintings, drawings, and photographs, finding the heroic in the forgotten.

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Detail Information

Series Title

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Call Number

900 BRO b

Publisher

: ., 2018

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262349956

Classification

900

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

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Subject(s)

History

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

Ria Brodell

Other Information

Cataloger

Khusnun

Source

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Journal Volume

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Journal Issue

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