eBook downloads, eBook resources & eBook authors
Just crawling out from under the Victorian blanket, Europe was devastated by a gruesome war that consumed the flower of its youth. Tamagne examines the currents of nostalgia and yearning, euphoria, rebellion, and exploration in the post-war era, and the b"
Just crawling out from under the Victorian blanket, Europe was devastated by a gruesome war that consumed the flower of its youth. Tamagne examines the currents of nostalgia and yearning, euphoria, rebellion, and exploration in the post-war era, and the b"
This book re-prints various essays on gay history from around Europe and America. Includes one essay in German and one in Italian.
Just crawling out from under the Victorian blanket, Europe was devastated by a gruesome war that consumed the flower of its youth. Tamagne dissects the strands of euphoria, rebellion, exploration, nostalgia and yearning, and the bonds forged at school and on the battlefront, in a scholarly treatise charting the early days of the homosexual and lesbian scene. The period between the two world wars was crucial in the history of homosexuality in Europe. It was then that homosexuality first came out into the light of day. Berlin became the capital of the new culture, and the center of a political movement seeking rights and protections for what we now call gays and lesbians. In England, the confruntation was brisk to undermine the structures and strictures of Victorianism; whereas in France (which was more tolerant, over all), homosexuality remained more subtle and nonmilitant.
Outstanding Academic Title 2005 - Choice Magazine The period between the two world wars was crucial in the history of homosexuality in Europe. It was then that homosexuality first came out into the light of day. Just crawling out from under the Victorian blanket, Europe was devastated by a gruesome war that consumed the flower of its youth. Tamagne examines the currents of nostalgia and yearning, euphoria, rebellion, and exploration in the postwar era, and the bonds forged at school and on the battlefront, in a scholarly treatise charting the early days of the homosexual and lesbian scene. Berlin became the capital of the new culture, and the center of a political movement seeking rights and protections for what we now call gays and lesbians. In England, the struggle was brisk to undermine the structures and strictures of Victorianism; whereas in France (which was more tolerant, over all), homosexuality remained more subtle and nonmilitant. However, the social and political backlash soon became apparent, first of all in Germany. More conservative attitudes arrested the evolution of the new mores, and it was not until the 1960s that the new wave of the sexual revolution once again swept the continent. Tamagne's work outlines the long and arduous journey from the shadows toward acceptability as the homosexual and lesbian community sets out to find a new legitimacy at various levels of society. She weaves together cultural references from literature, songs and theater, news stories and private correspondence, police reports and government documents to give a rounded picture of the evolving scene. * "The first volume argues that homosexuality, a 'high culture' sort, enjoyed a golden ageconsequent upon the Great War's liberalization of morals. In volume 2, reaction and repression march through the 1930s. [...] A lively read. Highly recommended." - CHOICE Magazine * Florence Tamagne holds a PhD from the prestigious Institute of Political Studies in Paris, France. This is her second book tracing the evolution of homosexuality in Europe.
Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title A terrible sin, a gift from the gods, a mental illness, a natural human variation—over the centuries people have defined homosexuality in all of these ways. Since the word homosexual was coined in 1869, many scientists in a variety of fields have sought to understand same-sex intimacy. Drawing on recent insights in biology and genetics, psychiatrist Francis Mondimore set out to explore the complex landscape of sexual orientation. The result is A Natural History of Homosexuality, a generous work that synthesizes research in biology, history, psychology, and politics to explain how homosexuality has been understood and defined from ancient times until the present. Mondimore narrates tales of love and courage as well as discrimination and bigotry in settings as diverse as ancient Greece and Victorian England, early America and fin de siecle Vienna. He also tells fascinating stories about societies which accepted, incorporated, or institutionalized homosexuality into mainstream culture, stories illustrating that same-sex eroticism was often accepted as a normal aspect of human sexuality. In twentieth-century America, researchers first recognized that homosexuality might not be "pathological" when Alfred Kinsey and Evelyn Hooker conducted the first studies of sexuality not biased by preconceived notions of "normal" sexual behavior. After exploring sexual development in the human fetus, Mondimore reviews current biological research into the nature of sexual orientation and examines recent scientific findings on the role of heredity and hormones, as well as Simon LeVay's 1991 brain studies. He then turns to a very important focus: on people and their individual experiences. He explores "what happens between childhood and adulthood in an individual that makes him or her come to identify himself or herself as having a sexual orientation." He also explains our current understanding of bisexuality and the transgender phenomena of transsexualism and transvestism. Finally, Mondimore analyzes the circumstances of such prominent scandals as the anti-homosexual trials of Oscar Wilde and Philip von Eulenberg, and recounts the Nazi persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust. This far-reaching discussion includes a description of the ex-gay ministries and reparative therapy as well as the Stonewall riots and AIDS, ending with the emergence of gay pride and community.
How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan. Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love in history, literature, and art, making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World. Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of sodomites in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great. Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece. Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.
This volume explores the realities and representations of same-sex sexuality in France in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, the period that witnessed the emergence of "homosexuality" in the modern sense of the word. Based on archival research and textual analysis, the articles examine the development of homosexual subcultures and illustrate the ways in which philosophes, pamphleteers, police, novelists, scientists, and politicians conceptualized same-sex relations and connected them with more general concerns about order and disorder. The contributors--Elizabeth Colwill, Michael David Sibalis, Victoria Thompson, William Peniston, Vernon Rosario II, Francesca Canade-Sautman, Martha Hanna, Robert A. Nye, and the editors Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. and Jeffrey Merrick--use the methods of intellectual and cultural history, the history of science, literary studies, legal and social history, and microhistory. This collection shows how the subject of homosexuality is related to important topics in French history: the Enlightenment, the revolutionary tradition, social discipline, positivism, elite and popular culture, nationalism, feminism, and the construction of identity. Given the role of gays and lesbians in modern French culture and the work of French scholars on the history of sexuality, this collection fills an important gap in the literature and represents the first attempt in any language to explore this subject over three centuries from a variety of perspectives.
An overview of gay art from the beginning of recorded time to the present--a groundbreaking work of nuanced scholarship encompassing all genres in all ages on gay themes. 145 photos, 32 in color.
