Histories of Sexology

Histories of Sexology: Between Science and Politics takes an interdisciplinary and reflexive approach to the historiography of sexology. Drawing on an intellectual history perspective informed by recent developments in science and technology studies and political history of science, this book examines specific social, cultural, intellectual, scientific and political contexts that have given shape to theories of sexuality, but also to practices in medicine, psychology, education and sexology. Furthermore, it explores various ways that theories of sexuality have both informed and been produced by sexologiesas scientific and clinical discourses about sexin Western countries since the 19th century.

Brings together scholars, practitioners and activists from varied disciplinary backgrounds and national contexts Examines the roles played by activists fighting for sexual and human rights in shaping and reshaping theories of sexuality Offers much needed research on the overlapping histories produced from differing historiographical perspectives and objectives caused by the blurring of lines between academic research, clinical practice and activism

Auteur

Alain Giami is Emeritus Research Professor at Inserm (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) in Paris, France. He is currently the Chair of the World Association for Sexual Health Scientific Committee (2017-2021). Among other books, he has co-edited Sexual Revolutions, (2015). Sharman Levinson is Associate Professor at the University of Angers, France, where she specializes in history of French physiology and psychology. Affiliated with the Gender, Sexuality, and Society Program at the American University of Paris, she is also President of the Association pour la Recherche et l'Intervention Muséale en Psychologie.

Texte du rabat

Histories of Sexology: Between Science and Politics takes an interdisciplinary and reflexive approach to the historiography of sexology. Drawing on an intellectual history perspective informed by recent developments in science and technology studies and political history of science, this book examines specific social, cultural, intellectual, scientific and political contexts that have given shape to theories of sexuality, but also to practices in medicine, psychology, education and sexology. Furthermore, it explores various ways that theories of sexuality have both informed and been produced by sexologies as scientific and clinical discourses about sex in Western countries since the 19th century.

Contenu

1. Sexology's unexpected progressivness in the Cold War East: Shaping people's sexual selves, socialist societies.- 2. 'Humanitarian hedonists' as sex educators: the medical and political work of Fritz Brupbacher (1874-1945) and Paulette Brupbacher (1880-1967).- 3. 'Healthy' relationships: feminism and the psy disciplines in the political history of sexual violence in contemporary America.- 4. Saving Sexual Science: Kinsey and American Religious-Conservative Politics (Alexandre Paturel, Véronique Mottier, Cynthia Kraus).- 5. Medicine and the paradox of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Switzerland: toward a new system of coercion (1940-1960).- 6. Politics, Religion and Sexuality: psychoanalysis and sexology in the Brazilian publishing market in the first decades of the 20th century.- 7. Shaping the Erotic Body: Technology and Women's Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century American Medicine.- 8. 'Lack of clarity' and 'false premises' Partnership and translations in impotence-related petitions for marriage annulment in 19th-century Spain (Marie Walin).- 9. Popular Medical Books and Defloration: Shaping Femininity and Masculinity in the Nineteenth Century (Pauline Mortas).- 10. Girl or boy? The French birth of the word sexologie (1901-1912).- 11. Marie Bonaparte and female frigidity: from physiology to psychology.- 12. Hernani de Irajá and the early years of Brazilian sexology.- 13. The Pornographic Object of Knowledge: Pornography as Epistemology.- 14. African hypersexuality: a threat to white settlers? The stigmatization of black sexuality as a means of regulating white sexuality.- 15. Sexological discourses and the self in Rachilde's Monsieur Vénus (1884) and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness ( 1928).- 16. The Various Stages of the Alphabet Soup: from Sade to modern times.- 17. The origins of the theory of sexual fétichisme: articles by Charcot and Magnan (1882) and Alfred Binet (1887).