Queer Modernism and “The Little Review” - How Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap Reshaped Literature and Each Other

This Pride Month, the Center for Brooklyn History turns to the story of Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, the visionary editors behind The Little Review, whose partnership — both personal and professional — helped shape the course of modern literature.

At a time when both queerness and artistic experimentation were met with resistance, Anderson and Heap created a magazine that embraced risk, provoked controversy, and championed groundbreaking work, most famously publishing James Joyce's Ulysses and facing obscenity charges as a result.

Drawing on new scholarship, historian Holly Baggett and culture journalist Adam Morgan explore these two pioneering figures — how queerness informed their editorial approach, their role in introducing groundbreaking writers to American audiences, and why their contributions have so often been overlooked.

Taking place on Bloomsday, June 16 — the day Leopold Bloom makes his iconic journey through Ulysses — this program offers a fitting tribute to the modernist moment and the editors who helped expand the possibilities of literary expression.

Participants

Holly Baggett, professor emerita of History, is the author of Making No Compromise: Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap and the Little Review and editor of Dear Tiny Heart: The Letters of Jane Heap and Florence Reynolds.

Adam Morgan is a culture journalist and critic whose writing has appeared in Esquire, Wired, Scientific American, The Paris Review, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. He is the author of A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature.

Center for Brooklyn History programs are made possible in part by the New York State Legislature and the Office of the Governor.