Charles Upchurch What does a historian of sexuality do when confronted with something that looks compellingly modern, but decades before it was supposed to exist? Specifically, I mean evidence of identity and political activism built around a positive interpretation of same-sex desire in the 1820s. The evidence, although fragmentary and […]
Tag: politics
Sexuality, Family Planning, and the British Left: An Interview with Stephen Brooke
Interview by David Minto A sweeping account of sexuality and socialism in twentieth century Britain, Stephen Brooke’s Sexual Politics has the feel of a traditional political history even as it foregrounds a subject still too often ignored in the analysis of political modernity. Demonstrating how leftist organizing shaped national battles over abortion, […]
The Obergefell Syllabus: Historicizing Same-Sex Marriage in the United States
On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision established the constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry in all 50 states. Discussions of the United States national past abounded in the majority opinion and in the dissents. The words “history” / “historical” / “historic” appear in the […]
‘Pray the gay away’: The Catholic Church, Sexology and Sexuality in Italy
Chiara Beccalossi From Ireland’s recent referendum in support of same-sex marriage to the Australian Prime Minister’s adamant refusal to offer a conscience vote on the same issue, countries around the world are once again talking about homosexuality. But for all the positive steps taken towards granting LGBTI citizens the same rights as […]
Classroom Wars and Sexual Politics: An Interview with Natalia Mehlman Petrzela
Interview by Robert Self The schoolhouse has long been a crucible in the construction and contestation of “family values.” In Classroom Wars: Language, Sex and the Making of Modern Political Culture (Oxford, 2015), Natalia Mehlman Petrzela focuses on battles over sex education and bilingual education in order to chart how Californians […]
“In My Bed”: Sexual Violence Over Fifty Years on One College Campus
Sexual violence has been a consistent facet of college women’s experiences.
Sexual Politics in the Era of Reagan and Thatcher: Marc Stein in Conversation with Jeffrey Weeks
Interview by Marc Stein In May 1988, when I was working as the coordinating editor of Gay Community News in Boston, Massachusetts, I interviewed Jeffrey Weeks, the influential British sociologist and historian who had written Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (1977), Sex, Politics, […]