title: Gertrude Stein, opium queen: notes on a mistaken embrace.
abstract: Gertrude Stein was not only a fairly open lesbian but also Jewish, expatriate, and androgynous-all attributes that often retarded mass-market success. Why then was she so popular? The article offers original research highlighting how Stein was constructed as a kind of "opium queen" in the popular American press, and the ways that this decadent, bohemian celebrity persona allowed her to operate as "broadly queer" rather than "specifically gay" in the American cultural imaginary-a negotiation that accounts for the mass-market success rather than censure of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas despite the unparalleled visibility of its lesbian erotics.
authors: Department of English, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. jsolomon@usc.edu
authors: Jeff
authors: J
authors: Solomon
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D018452:Homosexuality, Female / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D007585:Jews / Q000266:history*; D008019:Life Style / Q000266:history*; D008093:Literature, Modern / Q000266:history*; D008402:Mass Media / Q000266:history*; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D009892:Opium / Q000266:history*; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D009892:Opium