Synopses & Reviews
In this long-awaited book, David M. Halperin revisits and refines the argument he put forward in his classic
One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: that hetero- and homosexuality are not biologically constituted but are, instead, historically and culturally produced.
How to Do the History of Homosexuality expands on this view, updates it, answers its critics, and makes greater allowance for continuities in the history of sexuality. Above all, Halperin offers a vigorous defense of the historicist approach to the construction of sexuality, an approach that sets a premium on the description of other societies in all their irreducible specificity and does not force them to fit our own conceptions of what sexuality is or ought to be.
Dealing both with male homosexuality and with lesbianism, this study imparts to the history of sexuality a renewed sense of adventure and daring. It recovers the radical design of Michel Foucault's epochal work, salvaging Foucault's insights from common misapprehensions and making them newly available to historians, so that they can once again provide a powerful impetus for innovation in the field. Far from having exhausted Foucault's revolutionary ideas, Halperin maintains that we have yet to come to terms with their startling implications. Exploring the broader significance of historicizing desire, Halperin questions the tendency among scholars to reduce the history of sexuality to a mere history of sexual classifications instead of a history of human subjectivity itself. Finally, in a theoretical tour de force, Halperin offers an altogether new strategy for approaching the history of homosexualityand#8212;one that can accommodate both ruptures and continuities, both identity and difference in sexual experiences across time and space.
Impassioned but judicious, controversial but deeply informed, How to Do the History of Homosexuality is a book rich in suggestive propositions as well as eye-opening details. It will prove to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of sexuality.
Review
"This is a major book that undertakes the difficult tasks of summarizing current work in the field of lesbian/queer history and suggesting directions for future work. . . .The book should be required reading. . . for anyone interested in how same-sex love has been understood today and in the past."
Review
andldquo;Disturbing Practices is a learned, erudite, and polished work of scholarship that breaks new ground in the way it conceptualizes the queer past. This is an amazingly rich study that is organized and written in such a way that its major contributions are evident, clear, and superbly developed.andrdquo;
Review
and#8220;Focusing on World War I in England, a time and place often associated with the emergence of a distinctive lesbian identity, Laura Doan argues instead that this was a period that had yet to develop sexual taxonomies. Rather than restore to view lesbians hidden from history, Doan gives us elasticity, inarticulateness, and a world without norms. Disturbing Practices argues eloquently for the necessity of a queer critical history that does not take its categories for granted.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Across her career, Laura Doanand#8217;s scholarly signature has been her refusal to entertain an axiomatic knowledge without first subjecting it to rigorous critical pressure. Disturbing Practices rearticulates intellectual paradigms widely assumed as self-evident in the interests of a new queer critical history.and#8221;
Review
andquot;In a brilliant and challenging book, Laura Doan takes us out of the impasses of queer theory and opens up a new space for a queer critical history. The acuity of her theoretical interventions are only matched by the subtlety of her historical case studies.andquot;
Review
and#8220;Disturbing Practices stands comparison to the very best work in sexuality studies. Empirically rich and rigorous, it represents a challenging and groundbreaking intervention in the field.and#8221;
Review
"Disturbing Practices is a rich, erudite piece of scholarship that stands up as one of the most important interventions in the field for at least a decade."
Synopsis
The argument over sexual determinism--social versus biological--has a prominent place in both popular culture and current academic debates. In
How to Do the History of Homosexuality David M. Halperin, one of the most eminent thinkers in the world of gay and critical studies, argues that both hetero- and homosexuality are socially constructed, and submits a vigorous defense of historicist methods along the way. In this theoretical tour de force Halperin offers an altogether new strategy for approaching the history of sexuality--one that rehabilitates constructionist frameworks by readily acknowledging continuities.
Synopsis
For decades, the history of sexuality has been a multidisciplinary project serving competing agendas. Lesbian, gay, and queer scholars have produced powerful narratives by tracing the homosexual or queer subject as continuous or discontinuous. Yet organizing historical work around categories of identity as normal or abnormal often obscures how sexual matters were known or talked about in the past.and#160;Set against the backdrop of womenandrsquo;s work experiences, friendships, and communities during World War I,
Disturbing Practices draws on a substantial body of new archival material to expose the roadblocks still present in current practices and imagine new alternatives.
In this landmark book, Laura Doan clarifies the ethical value and political purpose of identity historyandmdash;and indeed its very capacity to give rise to innovative practices borne of sustained exchange between queer studies and critical history.and#160;Disturbing Practices insists on taking seriously the imperative to step outside the logic of identity to address questions as yet unasked about the modern sexual past.
About the Author
Laura Doan is professor of cultural history and sexuality studies at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Fashioning Sapphism: The Origins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture and editor of Sexology in Culture: Labeling Bodies and Desires, among other books.
Table of Contents
and#160;
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: History and Sexuality/Sexuality and History
PART 1and#160; /and#160; THE PRACTICE OF SEXUAL HISTORY
1and#160; An Uncommon Project: The Discipline Problem Reconsidered
2and#160; Genealogy Inside and Out
PART 2and#160; PRACTICING SEXUAL HISTORY
3and#160; Topsy-Turvydom: Gender, Sexuality, and the Problem of Categorization
4and#160; andldquo;We Cannot Use That Wordandrdquo;: On the Habits of Naming, Name Calling, and Self-Naming
5and#160; Normal Soap and Elastic Hymens: Historicizing the Modern Norms of Sexuality
Epilogue
Notes
Index