Clare Forstie

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Teaching Consultant at University of Minnesota

We invite educators from across levels and institutions to enter a conversation on the meaning and practices of lesbian pedagogies. We seek essays and commentaries from teachers reflecting on the processes involved in lesbian pedagogy from across disciplines and institutions. What does "lesbian pedagogy" mean in your teaching context, and what are...

Sexual identity research within sociology has largely examined the social contexts of sexuality as a central part of how we think about ourselves. While much of this research focuses on the experiences of marginalized people (gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and other identities), critical attention has also been paid to the social construction of he...

Urban lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community research in sociology has largely ignored LGBTQ communities in the most common urban form: small cities. In this article, I argue that LGBTQ communities in small cities are an underexplored source of theory making about LGBTQ communities more broadly, and I highlight the ways su...

Researchers and activists have argued that the term “lesbian” has been disappearing, in decline for decades, and have focused on tensions around gender and sexual identities as the source of its decline. I identify “post-lesbian discourse” as key concept in the changing landscape of LGBTQ terminology, and I highlight four concerns that emerge in th...

Discussions of sexual reputation typically involve hints and innuendos, as sexual behavior often cannot be explicitly addressed in public domains. In this article we explore the role of signaling in the creation of reputation, particularly when reputational claims may not be directly articulated. We describe sexual signals in their reach (who learn...

Using data from friendship interviews with lesbian, bisexual, and queer women in a small Midwestern city, I argue that non-urban communities might be characterized as ambivalently post-lesbian, as participants explain that shared identities "don't matter" in their friendships, while continuing to insist on the relevance of lesbian identity in their...

The concept of intimacy has long permeated theories of social life, and its use within sociology has produced conceptual confusion rather than coherence. Overlapping with concepts of emotions and communities, intimacy both binds modern life together and offers a respite from its affective “coldness.” This paper offers a framework for the concept of...

Trigger warnings are increasingly used in the college classroom to signal a broadening range of challenging content. Instructors, institutions, and students have debated their utility for privileged and marginalized students. This chapter explores the genealogy of trigger warnings as an educational concept rooted in feminist discourses of safety an...

Competitive reality television is a pervasive part of contemporary American culture and encompasses a range of topics and forms. We identify three categories, or spheres, of contestant-elimination reality shows: External Vote, Internal Vote, and Choosing Individual/Deity. Within each sphere, we examine the locus of blame and the structure of the sh...

Clare Forstie 1 "Hopeful and then disappointed in the end": Love as social practice in craigslist Missed Connections "it's feeling a connection to the person in real life and wondering, and then checking if it was mutual"-Helen Each year in the middle of February, news programs seem to spontaneously erupt in which pro-and anti-internet academic and...