Lisa M Tillmann
Biographic Data
| ID | 183856 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lisa M Tillmann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lisa M |
| FAMILY NAME | Tillmann |
| SIGNATURE | TILLMANN L M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rollins College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7291-5056 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 158 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
A Love Letter to Two Men
In this autoethnographic short story, the author seeks to reflect and advance Norman K. Denzin’s (2001) legacy of interpretive, critical, feminist, and communitarian inquiry by bearing witness to intimacies and fractures of a multi-decade friendship and chosen family. Through “friendship as method,” narrative evocation, and cultural critique, the essay illuminates how structural forces (e.g., heterosexism, homophobia, and sexism) infuse lives and…
Of All Days
A student at the author's college pens a racist column on immigration for the school newspaper. Two departments, including the author's, send campuswide e-mails denouncing the rhetoric. A firestorm erupts—as much over the e-mails as over the op-ed. Years later, the student visits the author unannounced
Strange Fruit
This poem examines drone warfare as a form of lynching. "Strange Fruit" links the deaths of Pakistani children Zeerak and Maria Khan to the murders of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, documented in the most infamous lynching photograph in U.S. history
Wedding Album
Historical and personal snapshots of weddings become poetic stanzas that advocate for marriage equality and for a social safety net strong enough to protect the human rights and meet the human needs of everyone, regardless of relational—or any other—status
Build a Bridge Out of Her
This poem uses the structure, aesthetics, and meanings of bridges to engage contemporary political and ethical challenges, including war and economic injustice
Labor Pains in the Academy
This piece offers autoethnographic reflections on crossroads to which many academics come: whether to seek (or postpone or avoid) parenthood and when. The author deeply explores the personal (her own trajectories from daughter and sister to potential mother and from graduate student to full professor) to reflect on structural constraints associated with graduate education, the academic job market, and institutional policies and politics
Deadline
In the summer of 2009, the author receives a call from a New York Times reporter about her book Between Gay and Straight. The book portrays her (now-ex) husband's and her integration into a network of gay male friends. "Deadline" explores tensions between private and public as the private turmoil of divorce clashes with the public construction of the author's marriage and with her determination to continue the social justice work of Between Gay a…
Coming Out and Going Home
The author, a heterosexual woman, and Gordon Bernstein, a gay man, have been friends and research collaborators since 1995. In 2004, the author accompanied Gordon on a trip to his hometown of Philadelphia to conduct fieldwork and interview family members. This project ethnographically explored personal and relational opportunities and challenges associated with coming out in a family system defined by avoidant communication, hegemonic masculinity…
Ode to Academic Labor
This resistive poem calls for collective action to combat the encroachment of corporate values into academic life. Best served hot
The State of Unions
At the 2005 Qualitative Inquiry conference, the author delivered a poem and slide show, "The State of Unions: Activism (and In-Activism) in Decision 2004." The performance processed the election in the context of her research community, a network of gay male friends-marginalized by sexual orientation but privileged by sex, gender expression, race, class, and education. Audience members offered mixed responses, some praising its provocative conten…
Don't Ask, Don't Tell
This article invites readers inside emotional and relational dynamics of coming out as gay in an alcoholic family system. Taking an interpretive approach to research, focused on how participants make sense of and make meaning from their lived experience, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" offers a longitudinal and narrative ethnographic account of family secrecy and disclosure
Father's Blessing
This article consists of ethnographic drama, poetry, and prose. Following interpretivist traditions focusing on how individuals make sense of and make meaning from their lived experience, the author, a heterosexual woman, travels with a gay male friend/participant to visit his estranged father, a retired Air Force pilot and elder in the Mormon Church. The work attempts to show the dialogic construction, negotiation, and transformation of identiti…
Remembering a Cool September
This ethnographic short story chronicles the author's emotional journey following September 11, 2001. After weeks of disconnection, she encounters a display of patriotism by two gay male friends, provoking her to process what it means to be both patriotic and gay in contemporary U.S. culture
Circles of Nineteen
Using poetic form, the author chronicles the class period following September 11, 2001, when a student's queries sparked complex thoughts and intense questioning. This piece opens a space for educators to reflect on emotional and ethical responsibilities during frightening and uncertain times
Friendship as Method
In this article, the author discusses friendship as a method of qualitative inquiry. After defining friendship and positing it as a kind of fieldwork, the methodological foundations of friendship as method are established. Next, it is proposed that friendship as method involves researching with the practices, at the pace, in the natural contexts, and with an ethic of friendship. Finally, the author describes this method's strengths and considerat…
Friendship as Method
In this article, the author discusses friendship as a method of qualitative inquiry. After defining friendship and positing it as a kind of fieldwork, the methodological foundations of friendship as method are established. Next, it is proposed that friendship as method involves researching with the practices, at the pace, in the natural contexts, and with an ethic of friendship. Finally, the author describes this method's strengths and considerat…
Coming Out and Going Home
The author, a heterosexual woman, and Gordon Bernstein, a gay man, have been friends and research collaborators since 1995. In 2004, the author accompanied Gordon on a trip to his hometown of Philadelphia to conduct fieldwork and interview family members. This project ethnographically explored personal and relational opportunities and challenges associated with coming out in a family system defined by avoidant communication, hegemonic masculinity…
Labor Pains in the Academy
This piece offers autoethnographic reflections on crossroads to which many academics come: whether to seek (or postpone or avoid) parenthood and when. The author deeply explores the personal (her own trajectories from daughter and sister to potential mother and from graduate student to full professor) to reflect on structural constraints associated with graduate education, the academic job market, and institutional policies and politics
The State of Unions
At the 2005 Qualitative Inquiry conference, the author delivered a poem and slide show, "The State of Unions: Activism (and In-Activism) in Decision 2004." The performance processed the election in the context of her research community, a network of gay male friends-marginalized by sexual orientation but privileged by sex, gender expression, race, class, and education. Audience members offered mixed responses, some praising its provocative conten…
Father's Blessing
This article consists of ethnographic drama, poetry, and prose. Following interpretivist traditions focusing on how individuals make sense of and make meaning from their lived experience, the author, a heterosexual woman, travels with a gay male friend/participant to visit his estranged father, a retired Air Force pilot and elder in the Mormon Church. The work attempts to show the dialogic construction, negotiation, and transformation of identiti…
Remembering a Cool September
This ethnographic short story chronicles the author's emotional journey following September 11, 2001. After weeks of disconnection, she encounters a display of patriotism by two gay male friends, provoking her to process what it means to be both patriotic and gay in contemporary U.S. culture
Circles of Nineteen
Using poetic form, the author chronicles the class period following September 11, 2001, when a student's queries sparked complex thoughts and intense questioning. This piece opens a space for educators to reflect on emotional and ethical responsibilities during frightening and uncertain times
Friendship as Method
In this article, the author discusses friendship as a method of qualitative inquiry. After defining friendship and positing it as a kind of fieldwork, the methodological foundations of friendship as method are established. Next, it is proposed that friendship as method involves researching with the practices, at the pace, in the natural contexts, and with an ethic of friendship. Finally, the author describes this method's strengths and considerat…
Remembering a Cool September
This ethnographic short story chronicles the author's emotional journey following September 11, 2001. After weeks of disconnection, she encounters a display of patriotism by two gay male friends, provoking her to process what it means to be both patriotic and gay in contemporary U.S. culture
Circles of Nineteen
Using poetic form, the author chronicles the class period following September 11, 2001, when a student's queries sparked complex thoughts and intense questioning. This piece opens a space for educators to reflect on emotional and ethical responsibilities during frightening and uncertain times
Father's Blessing
This article consists of ethnographic drama, poetry, and prose. Following interpretivist traditions focusing on how individuals make sense of and make meaning from their lived experience, the author, a heterosexual woman, travels with a gay male friend/participant to visit his estranged father, a retired Air Force pilot and elder in the Mormon Church. The work attempts to show the dialogic construction, negotiation, and transformation of identiti…
Ode to Academic Labor
This resistive poem calls for collective action to combat the encroachment of corporate values into academic life. Best served hot
The State of Unions
At the 2005 Qualitative Inquiry conference, the author delivered a poem and slide show, "The State of Unions: Activism (and In-Activism) in Decision 2004." The performance processed the election in the context of her research community, a network of gay male friends-marginalized by sexual orientation but privileged by sex, gender expression, race, class, and education. Audience members offered mixed responses, some praising its provocative conten…
Don't Ask, Don't Tell
This article invites readers inside emotional and relational dynamics of coming out as gay in an alcoholic family system. Taking an interpretive approach to research, focused on how participants make sense of and make meaning from their lived experience, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" offers a longitudinal and narrative ethnographic account of family secrecy and disclosure
Deadline
In the summer of 2009, the author receives a call from a New York Times reporter about her book Between Gay and Straight. The book portrays her (now-ex) husband's and her integration into a network of gay male friends. "Deadline" explores tensions between private and public as the private turmoil of divorce clashes with the public construction of the author's marriage and with her determination to continue the social justice work of Between Gay a…
Coming Out and Going Home
The author, a heterosexual woman, and Gordon Bernstein, a gay man, have been friends and research collaborators since 1995. In 2004, the author accompanied Gordon on a trip to his hometown of Philadelphia to conduct fieldwork and interview family members. This project ethnographically explored personal and relational opportunities and challenges associated with coming out in a family system defined by avoidant communication, hegemonic masculinity…
Build a Bridge Out of Her
This poem uses the structure, aesthetics, and meanings of bridges to engage contemporary political and ethical challenges, including war and economic injustice
Labor Pains in the Academy
This piece offers autoethnographic reflections on crossroads to which many academics come: whether to seek (or postpone or avoid) parenthood and when. The author deeply explores the personal (her own trajectories from daughter and sister to potential mother and from graduate student to full professor) to reflect on structural constraints associated with graduate education, the academic job market, and institutional policies and politics
Wedding Album
Historical and personal snapshots of weddings become poetic stanzas that advocate for marriage equality and for a social safety net strong enough to protect the human rights and meet the human needs of everyone, regardless of relational—or any other—status
Of All Days
A student at the author's college pens a racist column on immigration for the school newspaper. Two departments, including the author's, send campuswide e-mails denouncing the rhetoric. A firestorm erupts—as much over the e-mails as over the op-ed. Years later, the student visits the author unannounced
Strange Fruit
This poem examines drone warfare as a form of lynching. "Strange Fruit" links the deaths of Pakistani children Zeerak and Maria Khan to the murders of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, documented in the most infamous lynching photograph in U.S. history
A Love Letter to Two Men
In this autoethnographic short story, the author seeks to reflect and advance Norman K. Denzin’s (2001) legacy of interpretive, critical, feminist, and communitarian inquiry by bearing witness to intimacies and fractures of a multi-decade friendship and chosen family. Through “friendship as method,” narrative evocation, and cultural critique, the essay illuminates how structural forces (e.g., heterosexism, homophobia, and sexism) infuse lives and…
Sociology (12 works) · Political science (7 works) · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics (6 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Art (5 works) · Ethnography (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Literature (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Poetry (5 works)