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An Associate Professor in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney, Wallace also questions some of the orthodoxies associated with queer theory, including the idea that marriage should be rejected as a conservative heterosexual institution. 鈥淢arriage is often a contemptible object for queer theory, which hasn鈥檛 had much good to say about gay marriage or marriage equality.鈥�

She explained her approach in an interview at the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre in the R.D. Watt Building: 鈥淚 was trying to think what the rapid global uptake of marriage equality means for queer theory, which has been very attached to the idea of anti-normativity and the kinds of radicalism perceived to follow from that. The domestic certainties associated with marriage were never something queer theory wanted to own.鈥�

New Zealand born and educated, Wallace studied literature before becoming interested in film in the context of sexuality studies. Her first book was about the emergence of homosexuality in Pacific cross-cultural encounters from Cook and Melville to Gauguin and Margaret Mead. Her second book, wittily subtitled The Sexual Life of Apartments, looked at mainstream lesbian cinema after 1968, when Hollywood鈥檚 morally restrictive Production Code was abandoned.

In 2011 Wallace moved from Auckland to Sydney with her partner Annamarie Jagose, who is now Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. Together for almost 30 years, they are not legally married. 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 get married in a fit,鈥� said Wallace with a smile.

An Australian Research Council Future Fellowship gave her four years to work on a project about gay and lesbian domesticity, which evolved into Reattachment Theory (Duke University Press, May 2020).

鈥淥ne of the premises of sexuality studies is that homosexuality doesn鈥檛 leave much trace in the world, as opposed to the familial cultures associated with heterosexuality that tend to have much more obvious intergenerational legacies. But I am interested in the worlds that gays and lesbians have made and what is left of them; which often involves thinking about material culture and style.鈥�

For a book called Domestic Imaginaries she wrote a chapter about the homes of gay writers Patrick White in Sydney and Frank Sargeson in Auckland, and also turned to domestic melodrama, a genre of films centred on relationships and their internal dilemmas.

鈥淚nitially I thought I was writing a book about gay melodrama,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut it turned out to be a book about remarriage, or the idea that the capacity to reattach might now be central to our thinking about the sustainability of relationships.鈥�

Wallace drew her 鈥減reposterous idea鈥� 鈥� her words 鈥� that all marriage is gay marriage from the work of American philosopher Stanley Cavell. In his 1981 book Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage, Cavell examined popular movies of the 1930s and 1940s that reunite a husband and wife who are on the brink of divorce. They included Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story, both starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

鈥淐avell realised these films were a response to the fact that divorce had now become completely accepted by the American middle class,鈥� Wallace said. 鈥淚t was the social fact of divorce that forced a rethinking of what marriage was, and those films did that thinking for an entire generation of Americans and anyone else who grew up with Hollywood cinema.

鈥淚 realised the same thing is happening now. The advent of gay marriage means that what we think marriage is has fundamentally altered.鈥�

In her book, Wallace looked at another set of films that 鈥渄id the thinking for me鈥�. Those films include Craig鈥檚 Wife (1936) directed by Dorothy Arzner; High Art (1998), Laurel Canyon (2002) and The Kids Are All Right (2010) by Lisa Chodolenko; A Single Man (2009) by Tom Ford; and Weekend (2011) and 45 Years (2015) by Andrew Haigh.

Lesbian director Arzner worked under the Production Code and set her films in 鈥渉omosocial environments,鈥� such as Hollywood dance studios and sorority houses. Craig鈥檚 Wife is about a woman who loves her house more than her husband and has a gay subtext in the film鈥檚 set designer, William Haines.

Haines was an actor until his open homosexuality led to his studio contract being terminated. He later became an interior designer famous for working with Joan Crawford and Carole Lombard, who both redecorated each time they divorced a husband.

鈥淚 tried to demonstrate that because the commentary on Craig鈥檚 Wife is obsessed with the heterosexual story, it cannot see all the other stories that are going on,鈥� Wallace said.

She refers to Chodolenko鈥檚 three films as an 鈥渁ttachment trilogy鈥� because each tells the story of a couple come unstuck. 鈥淚t turns out that鈥檚 the story I鈥檓 interested in 鈥� when couples come unstuck, can they stick themselves together again?鈥�

Charlotte Rampling gives a cool performance of emotional pain in 45 Years, another story about a heterosexual marriage made by a gay director. Wallace interprets the film as a reversioning of French director Eric Rohmer鈥檚 A Tale of Winter, a 鈥渞emarriage comedy鈥� derived from Shakespeare鈥檚 The Winter鈥檚 Tale.

鈥淚 call that chapter 鈥楾he Remarriage Crisis鈥� because the wife is poised in a position where she cannot seem to find it in herself to recommit to her husband. But it鈥檚 not a bleak film; Haigh keeps asking you to stay on the side of hopefulness. At the end it is a single shot held on Charlotte Rampling鈥檚 face that carries all that sense of possibility and impossibility.鈥�

In Reattachment Theory Wallace also discusses the history of the novel and the critical distinction made between English novels that end in betrothal, and French novels that begin with marriage and end in adultery.

Everything goes in cycles, she said, and the rise of feminism in the 1970s produced 鈥減roblem marriage鈥� films and novels. Wallace points to the American writer John Updike, whose novels often involve second marriages perhaps because he thought along Cavellian lines that 鈥測ou need two shots at marriage鈥�.

In 2018 Wallace received SSSHARC support for an Ultimate Peer Review and invited Professor Robyn Wiegman of Duke University, a leading figure in feminist and queer theory, to attend as her critical 鈥渙pponent鈥� in a discussion of her manuscript. This meant delaying the delivery of the finished book to the publisher by almost a year. The delay was worthwhile.

Wiegman wrote a 12-page report that said Wallace鈥檚 work had the potential to change the critical field鈥檚 relation to marriage but only if she fully owned her argument about queer theory and negativity. 鈥淗aving Robyn say that gave me the authority and confidence to stick my neck out,鈥� she said.

About 15 colleagues took part in the peer review, which began with Wiegman giving a 40-minute account of what she thought the book did, before others commented. That process, Wallace said, 鈥渕ade the manuscript feel like a book. It鈥檚 always good to be a little bit intimidated by somebody, and Robyn鈥檚 a wonderful writer and a first-class intellect, so to feel that she was in my corner gave me a lot of confidence. And I ended up with a very firm academic friendship.鈥�

While she was in town, Wiegman also co-taught a SSSHARC masterclass with Wallace and gave a public lecture on the psychopathology of Trump鈥檚 America.

Since finishing Reattachment Theory, Wallace has co-edited with Professor Scott Herring (Indiana) an anthology, Long Term: Essays on Queer Commitment (forthcoming Duke University Press, 2021). This volume includes original essays by other prominent queer theorists, including Amy Villarejo, Professor of Humanities at Cornell University, who came to Sydney as a SSSHARC-funded Gilbert Fellow.

Wallace reflects that across her career she has changed from being an 鈥渋solationist鈥� writer to enjoying collaboration. In her current role as Director of Research Development for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (Humanities), she works with researchers to help them achieve their ambitions. She and Jagose are now collaborating on an ARC-funded Discovery Project on the couple in the era of marriage-equality, which experiments with auto-theoretical writing in 鈥渢he coupled voice鈥�.

Despite not wanting legal marriage for herself, Wallace recalls feeling 鈥渟trangely emotional鈥� while watching the results of the 2017 plebiscite on same-sex marriage in a workshop with a group of social scientists who immediately started calculating what the 61.6 per cent yes vote meant for the next federal election.

鈥淭hat was when I realised I did have skin in the game,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 was shocked that the numbers were so close and that things that touch my life would be determined on those numbers.鈥�

Thinking about how queer theory did not often engage with numbers, she joined a group planning a project related to the plebiscite. They used a SSSHARC Huddle to conduct a thought experiment: what questions they would ask if they were to conduct a survey around intimate relations.

鈥淲e talk about interdisciplinarity all the time, but thinking about quantititive聽 methods has made me engage with disciplines beyond my own,鈥� Wallace said.

Guided by Associate Professor Julie Mooney-Somers (School of Public Health), who runs an annual survey on lesbian life, the group put together a six-minute survey that went to 1000 people as part of a bigger YouGov e-survey around the last Australian election.

The survey asked respondents how they voted in the plebiscite and why, and how they would vote if it were held tomorrow. People who seemed to have the profile of no voters were less able to remember how they voted than declared yes voters, which suggests confirmation bias or the idea that people like to be on the winning team.

Thinking 鈥渓ike a novelist鈥�, Wallace remains interested in how selective political memory can be. 鈥淭o begin we had all these flash questions about intimacy and polyamory and all sorts of queer things. But people don鈥檛 know themselves and especially they don鈥檛 know their sexual selves, which is why I continue to find films a more reliable research device.鈥澛犅�

Professor Robyn Wiegman led an Ultimate Peer Review of Reattachment Theory by Lee Wallace on March 16, 2018 at the Law School, University of Sydney.

Wiegman gave a public lecture on 鈥淥utrage: The Psychic Life of Trump鈥檚 America鈥� for Sydney Ideas on March 13, 2018.聽

A SSSHARC Huddle on Queer Pragmatism went ahead on December 14, 2018 with Wallace and co-investigators Associate Professor Catriona Elder (Sociology), Dr Jessica Kean and Dr Shawna Tang (both Gender and Cultural Studies). Associate Professor Julie Mooney-Somers presented on quantitative methodologies and Professor Amy Villarejo was a respondent.