Margaret Mead Made Me Gay

“Mead features fascinating diary entries chronicling Newton’s youthful realization she was gay. And if Newton’s book is academic, this is dream homework. . . . Newton brings a sense of urgency and easy eloquence to a discussion of the disciplinary problems she faces as an anthropologist.” - Heather Findlay , Girlfriends

“[Margaret Mead Made Me Gay] is honest, moving on the personal level and provocative on the academic level.” - Toni McNaron, Women's Review of Books

“[A] collection of highly readable, aways provocative essays.” - Michael Schwartz , Gay & Lesbian Review

“[G]roundbreaking. . . . Newton has contributed a brilliant collection that will enrich and promote the field of gender studies.” - B. Medicine , Choice

“This butch can write! Ranging from the witty and playful to the most seriously analytical, her prose is always precise, rich, felicitous, never marred by postmodern neologisms or other jargon. . . . Not only anthropologists, but historians, sociologists, and psychologists, all thos who value gay studies, will find much to delight and to ponder in this stimulating volume.” - Jeffrey M. Dickemann , CLGH Newsletter

“This collection of essays by cultural anthropologist Esther Newton can be considered an intellectual autobiography. . . . Always thought provoking and interesting, Newton never descends into the dryness of academic writing like many others, which makes it accessible to everyone.” - Lambda Book Report

“A welcome collection of Esther Newton’s research and personal essays . . . . This volume is both provocative and accessible enough to be used successfully in undergraduate courses on field methods, women’s movements, and gay and lesbian studies. It may also be a stimulating resource in a graduate course on professional socialization in anthropology or sociology. This book can serve as a compelling example of the epistemological complexities of feminist memoir projects. . . . Overall this book will be of benefit to anyone who is interested in queer and/or feminist ethnography . . . .” - Jane Ward, Gender & Society

“Courage and defiance are . . . qualities that mark Newton’s life and writing.” - Aaron Hamburger , New York Blade

“Newton takes the reader along as she forges a career; she began studying female impersonators in the mid-’60s, when no one else was, resulting in the book Mother Camp (1972). Margaret Mead Made Me Gay contains enough of that work to make a strong case for Newton as a pioneer of queer studies. It also includes the terrific, previously unpublished 1990s essay ‘Theater: Gay Anti-Church’ which freshly explores the cliché of stage-loving gays.” - Heather Joslyn , City Paper (Baltimore)

“Newton, one of the queer community’s most distinguished scholars and thinkers, has gathered together a wonderful collection of her writings from the past 30 years, fashioning them into an intellectual autobiography.” - , Front Page

“This collection—an intellectual genealogy of Newton’s work from the last 30 years—reveals the prescience and durability of her earliest writings. . . . Her newer pieces prove just as stimulating and vital.” - Publishers Weekly

“This new book contains all [Newton’s] shorter work in a single, knockout volume.” - Bradley Winterton , South China Morning Post

“Esther Newton is, quite simply, a pioneering figure in researching contemporary queer populations, as well as one of the most important voices in post WWII anthropology. We are very fortunate to finally have her essays assembled into an accessible collection. This anthology is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in late twentieth-century anthropology, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, gender and sexuality, and the social science of everyday life.” - Gayle Rubin

“Esther Newton’s work . . . has changed anthropology, feminist studies, and queer studies in remarkable ways. . . . Newton’s methodological innovation has less to do with crafting new empirical tools and more to do with a creative and inspired mode of listening and participating in the cultures she studies.” - from the Foreword by Judith Halberstam

“I was looking for any way out, some Mad Hatter to lead me down a rabbit hole into a world where I didn't have to carry a clutch purse and want to be dominated by some guy with a crew cut and no neck...So that when I read Coming of Age in Samoa, my senior year in college, I was, to put it mildly, receptive."” - from the Introduction by Esther Newton

“This is a wonderful collection. Newton is a powerful intellectual whose reflections on her own work not only illuminate her life but also the relation between the academy and the social movements of the last thirty years.” - Elizabeth L. Kennedy, author of Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community