"I Probably Shouldn’t Say This”: Revealing Queer and Feminist Histories Through Gossip

Sinclair, Jeanie ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-9823-7235 (2026) "I Probably Shouldn’t Say This”: Revealing Queer and Feminist Histories Through Gossip. Groniek, 243: Gossip (243). ISSN ISSN: 0169-2801 (In Press)

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Abstract / Summary

This article explores how gossip in the oral history archive, and malicious gossip in particular, can be used to reveal hidden and alternative histories of modernism. Gossip can disrupt and subvert existing narratives of patriarchal modernism, and uncover important feminist and queer stories.

Gossip has been undertheorised in the practice of history. This article argues that gossip can amplify more marginalised voices and reveal hidden histories. Gossip is a powerful tool of radical knowledge that can be used not just to create alternative histories, or to add to existing modernist histories, but to undermine and destabilise those histories. This article explores gossip’s potential not only as a way of queering history, but also to uncover queer histories.

This article appears in the special edition on Gossip in Groniek 243, published April 2026.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Gossip, history, historiography, feminism, queer history, oral history, archives, community
ISSN: ISSN: 0169-2801
Subjects: Art History & Theory
History, Geography & Environment > Cornish Studies
History, Geography & Environment
History, Geography & Environment > Heritage Studies
Department: Falmouth School of Art
Depositing User: Jeanie Sinclair
Date Deposited: 09 Apr 2026 11:04
Last Modified: 09 Apr 2026 11:04
URI: https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/6277
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