Description: Investigates the rise and fall of US American lesbian cultural institutions since the 1970s.
Brief description: Bonnie J. Morris is Adjunct Professor of Women's Studies at both George Washington University and Georgetown University. She is the author of several books, including Eden Built by Eves: The Culture of Women's Music Festivals and Lubavitcher Women in America: Identity and Activism in the Postwar Era, also published by SUNY Press.
Review Quotes:
"Morris' work provides a rich, complex, and moreover vital contribution in the production and preservation of collective memory and herstory ... [it] is needed in the classroom, in gender and women's study courses, and to be used as foundational knowledge by which we might connect ourselves in an intergeneration lesbian conversation." - Sinister Wisdom
"Morris weaves an artful quilt of scholarly research, primary source material, and personal anecdotes in an effort to preserve the history of quickly vanishing, uniquely lesbian-identified spaces." - Gay & Lesbian Review
"...an extraordinarily thoughtful and thought-provoking read. Exceptionally well written." - Midwest Book Review
"...engaging ... Highly recommended." - CHOICE
"...fabulous ... This book is so rich, so wonderful, so enormous an undertaking, and so well written that it is hard to describe what a treasure it is ... The Disappearing L should be included in every history course in high schools and universities. It should be read by every lesbian who was there-and by every lesbian not fortunate enough to have experienced our golden era for herself. This book shines a light on the miracle we all created." - Lesbian Connection
"The Disappearing L is both an 'insider' story and a well-written analysis of a neglected piece of cultural history. Morris delivers convincing arguments about why the lesbian-feminist era was important not only to the individuals who lived it but also to a broader understanding of what has come to be called 'LGBT' history. No one could be better positioned to write this book than Morris." - Lillian Faderman, author of The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle