The growth in cultural studies has brought homosexuality to the center of work on gender and sexuality. The lesbian is now an accepted subject for scrutiny - she exists, but how do we define her history, when did it begin, and whom do we include?

Lesbian Subjects gathers essays - primarily from feminist studies between 1980 and 1993 - and traces lesbian studies from its beginnings, examining the difficulties of defining a lesbian perspective and a lesbian past - a culture, social milieux, and states of mind.

Essays range from studies of such well-known figures as the Harlem renaissance poet Alice Dunbar-Nelson, to studies of specific historical moments, such as the regulation of sexuality in the Women's Army Corps during World War II. Other essays treat well-known authors such as Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein, lesser-known writers from the early nineteenth century to the present, postmodern definitions of the lesbian, "Queer Theory," and lesbian invisibility.