Jessica Pruett is drawn to moments of intersection — where past influences present, where culture meets politics. Forming connections through these moments is what makes her work as assistant professor of gender and sexuality studies meaningful and exciting.
Since joining the faculty at Kenyon in 2023, she’s explored all of this and more in classes like “Feminist Theory” and “Making Noise: Race, Gender, Sexuality and the Politics of Popular Music.” Her interests in queer and feminist social movements, intersectional feminist theory and cultural studies collide in her current book project analyzing a series of lesbian feminist political conflicts rooted in the 1970s. (An article in the summer 2025 issue of Signs: The Journal of Women in Culture and Society is part of this project.)
Amid national celebrations of Pride Month, Pruett took a few moments to discuss LGBTQ+ community in Gambier, the role that pop music icons play in her classes, and why a nuanced understanding of today’s LGBTQ+ communities requires a better appreciation of the complex — and sometimes contradictory — eras that gave rise to them.
You study queer and feminist social movements. Was there a particular era that got you interested in the field?
Absolutely! This research initially emerged from my interest in the 1970s, and particularly from a stereotypical image of lesbianism that I had a sense was in some ways rooted in that decade. As a young person, I had this very rigid image of what lesbian identity was, and when I began my graduate studies I started to develop an understanding of how much of that image emerged from the lesbian political and social developments of the ’70s.
There are so many things that are interesting about the ’70s as a decade, but for me one of the most compelling throughlines is that this was a decade of contradictions for many LGBTQ+ activists in the U.S. So when we look at lesbian feminist politics in particular during this time period, on the one hand we see many activists articulating this expansive, radical political vision that seeks to remake the world completely. But on the other hand, the concrete conditions under which that political vision took shape were fairly bleak — this is also remembered as a decade of economic crisis, political upheaval and backlash to the gains won by social movements in the 1960s. The question of how these things are related — how the overlapping crises that I listed above actually shaped the imaginations of LGBTQ+ activists — has always been an interesting one to me.
Your book project focuses on lesbian feminist communities during the 1970s and the contributions of trans women and women of color. What are your most important takeaways from that work?
The overarching takeaways from that work are threefold. The first is that these histories are so much more complex than we often realize, and that there’s a lot to be gained from sitting with that complexity. When it mentions LGBTQ+ history at all, popular media often tells a really straightforward story about it — either an event was bad or it was good. Sometimes things are that simple, but frequently they aren’t, and when we ignore how complicated these histories are we close ourselves off from the opportunity of fully understanding them.
The second is related to that insight, and it’s that there is so much that we can learn from moments in LGBTQ+ history that we might consider “failures” — moments when activists didn’t achieve what they set out to do or acted in ways that were harmful or exclusionary. It can be uncomfortable to confront those moments, but that discomfort often signals that these are issues that we are still dealing with. That’s my third biggest takeaway from this work, that we’re still working through and being impacted by these histories all the time. You can’t have a deep, nuanced understanding of contemporary LGBTQ+ cultures, politics or communities without that historical knowledge.
How do you incorporate pop icons into your academic work — and why?
I have always been interested in putting popular culture into dialogue with my academic research. This is in part because I am a fan, but it also became clear very early on in the research for my current book project that putting these figures into conversation with LGBTQ+ cultural and political histories allows us to see both differently. Chappell Roan, for instance, got a lot of press earlier this year for her Grammys acceptance speech pushing record labels to offer artists livable wages and healthcare. Starting in the 1970s, the Women’s Music Movement was fostering similar conversations about the conditions of musical production and how to give women working in the music industry power over their working conditions. Analyzing these throughlines helps us to see the problems of the present in a new light.
Talk about the importance of affinity recognitions like Pride Month? What does it mean to you personally and how do you celebrate?
While there’s been a lot of rightful critique of Pride’s corporatization, I think ideally it is a moment to engage with LGBTQ+ histories, to celebrate personal and community strength and resilience, and to consider how we might mobilize that knowledge of the past and that communal strength in the present day to help realize a more just world. To me, it still feels like a revelation to be able to celebrate this part of my identity, which has made my life so much richer. I’ll celebrate by spending time with my LGBTQ+ friends and family, who are scattered all over the place but who remain one of the major sources of joy in my life.
How have you found community in Gambier and the surrounding area?
I feel incredibly lucky to have a very supportive community here in Gambier. One thing my partner and I were struck by when moving to the village was how welcoming everyone was — we immediately had people bringing over food and inviting us to their homes for dinner. I’ve particularly appreciated how active LGBTQ+ faculty and staff are in fostering community here in Gambier; during my first year at Kenyon, the LGBTQ staff/faculty happy hours introduced me to so many new friends and helped me to feel that I was making a life here.
Any tips for being a better ally in today’s society?
This is maybe an expected answer from a professor, but I think the most important thing is for all of us to invest less in a particular image of ourselves as allies and instead to really commit to a continual process of learning with and from others, then taking concrete action based on that learning. When allyship is something that you do, instead of something that you are, it requires a much more active commitment.
What are you most looking forward to this summer during your down time?
Going outside! I’m from Arizona, so I did not grow up in a place that looked anything like Gambier. To be able to go outside during the summer, see a chipmunk and take a walk without immediately overheating is still a novelty to me.