De-Centring Western Sexualities. A comment.

2013

2011

"De-Centring Western Sexualities critically assesses the current state of knowledge about sexualities outside the framings of 'The West', by focusing on gender and sexuality within the context of Central and Eastern Europe. Providing rich case studies drawn from a range of "post-communist" countries, this interdisciplinary volume brings together the latest research on the formation of sexualities in Central and Eastern Europe, alongside analyses of the sexual and national identity politics of the region. Engaged with current debates within queer studies surrounding temporality and knowledge production, and inspired by post-colonial critique, the book problematises the western hegemony that often characterises sexuality studies, and presents local theoretical insights better attuned to their geo-temporal realities. As such, it offers a cultural and social re-evaluation of everyday life experiences, and will be of interest to sociologists, queer studies scholars, geographers and anthropologists. ----------------- Contents: Introduction: why study sexualities in Central and Eastern Europe; Contemporary peripheries': queer studies, circulation of knowledge, and East/West divide, Joanna Mizielinska and Robert Kulpa; Between walls. Provincialisms, human rights, sexualities and Serbian public discourses on EU integration, Jelisaveta Blagojevic; Nations and sexualities – 'West' and 'East', Robert Kulpa; A short history of the queer time of 'post-socialist' Romania, or, are we there yet? Let's ask Madonna, Shannon Woodcock; Travelling ideas, travelling times. On the temporalities of LGBT and queer politics in Poland and in the 'West', Joanna Mizielinska; Researching transnational activism around LGBTQ politics in Central and Eastern Europe: activist solidarities and spatial imaginings, Jon Binnie and Christian Klesse; Rendering gender in lesbian families: a Czech case, Katerina Nedbálková; The heteronormative panopticon and the transparent closet of the public space in Slovenia, Roman Kuhar; Heteronormativity, intimate citizenship and the regulation of same-sex sexualities in Bulgaria, Sasha Roseneil and Maryia Stoilova; Situating intimate citizenship in Macedonia – emotional navigation and everyday queer/KVAR grounded moralities, Alexander Lambevski; Index. ------------------- Reviews: 'De-Centring Western Sexualities advances critical studies of sexualities and sexual politics in significant and inspiring ways. The authors provocatively question the "Western" focus of sexuality studies and highlight the consequences of Central and Eastern Europe's absence from recent queer critiques. This valuable collection offers essential new perspectives on the marketization of (homo)sexuality and the functioning of heteronormativity in these countries.' Gavin Brown, University of Leicester, UK, co-editor of Geographies of Sexualities 'De-Centring Western Sexualities is a landmark volume in the study of gender and sexuality. Kulpa and Mizielinska have gathered here and framed some of the very best essays on discourses of sexuality in the context of Central and Eastern Europe. Not content to simply mark distinctions between East and West, the US and the rest, local and global, the editors' introduction and many of the essays here actually retheorize concepts of temporality, spatiality and sociality in the process of asking after the meaning of sexuality outside of its framing in "the West". Ranging in topic from heteronormativity to lesbian families, from transnational activism to queer temporalities and combining social science methodologies with theoretical inquiries, this collection is as broad as it is deep and it creates many new contexts for rethinking sexuality and de-centering the West.' Judith Halberstam, University of Southern California, USA, author of In a Queer Time and Place 'There are few publications of which one could say one had waited for them to appear for ten years. This is even less the case with regard to academic publications. This moment of enthusiasm results from the fusion of geo-political, temporal and activist criticism in the book 'De-centring Western sexualities', edited by Robert Kulpa and Joanna Mizielinska. The book explores the question of the relationship of Western European and so-called post-communist countries to sexual politics. While there may have been continuous, emancipatory developments in LGBTIQ politics in west Europe, all activist strategies and all theoretical developments seem to have coincidentally impacted on the diverse communities of the East since the fall of the wall. Robert Kulpa and Joanna Mizielinska literally talk of a 'knot' of geo-temporal coincidences which spilled over the wall: homophile movements, identity-political gay and lesbian organisations which are primarily interested in legal equality and inclusion into a (hetero) normality, as much as queer approaches and groups, which are less interested in assimilation than for the destabilisation of societal walls. (...) This is a necessary book which achieves to document the complex nature of hegemonic structures in a way that allows to unsettle the representation of 'inside and outside'. Marty Huber (2011), 'Shaking (Stone-) Wall. An (East) enlarged, decentralising book review'. Kulturisse. Zeitschrift für radikaldemokratische Kulturepolitik. No. 1 2001, (IG Kultur Österreich), pp. 20-21. 'The dual timelines of development between the Queer movements in Western and Central/Eastern Europe's mean that polarized nationalism(s), the desire(s) for cultural independence(s), differing political loyalties, and differences in language, culture, and legislation further complicate the idea of complete homogeneity in European Queer activist movements. This socio-political soup seems to ensure that the lived experiences of Queer citizens in neighboring countries can be almost completely oppositional. Coupled with huge differences in the rights for men and women, and considering how this interacts with the positioning of rights in regards to intimate citizenship, 'De-centering Western Sexualities' is a necessary academic ear trumpet for us to learn to listen in, for particular ideas present in cacophony of 'Western' Queer voices that are shouting out for their rights. (...) 'De-centering Western Sexualities' gives an excellent insight and attempts a historical overview which asks academics to consider dual timelines of development, for which without an understanding of, the current conflicts within specific European Queer cultures and movements appear overly confusing and incongruent.' Stefanie Petrik (2011), 'Go West: Queer in Europe and De-Centring Western Sexualities'. Media and Culture Reviews (online). 'The editors make a good effort to shatter and rebuild reader's assumptions about the CEE region, which has experienced a "tectonic restructuring" since 1989. They do that in particular by complicating the ideas about European time and space. How come, for example, that we don't think of Germany as a post-communist European country? While doing that they are also able to give some (indispensable) remediation about the geo-spatial and geo-political context the individual texts explore in more details. (...) All in all the collection De-Centring Western Sexualities managed to provide a host of unpredictable angles and new information. While doing that it was also able to inspire some thrilling ideas to be incorporated in novel research projects – something most of the Western queer anthologies that evoke only the "been there, done that" sentiment fail to do. Hence I would suggest that you not just read the volume when you have time, but actually make time to read what Central and Eastern European perspectives could offer you in terms of revitalizing queer theory.' Tuula Juvonen (2011), 'Where Stonewall Never Happened': Theorizing Queer in Central and Eastern Europe'. SQS Journal of Queer Studies in Finland, No 2. De-Centering Western Sexualities is a valuable and overdue collection of ten essays which address non-normative sexualities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual/transgender and queer (LGBTQ) activisms and politics in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) context. The book’s relevance is two-fold. On the one hand, it provides theoretical and analytical tools to critically assess the hegemony and influence of “Western” knowledge production in relation to (homo)sexual identities, communities and practices in CEE. On the other hand, by presenting intrinsic examples and local case studies of sexual politics, the volume marks a significant step in the theory production of queer and sexuality studies. (...) Amir Hodžic (2011), 'Review of De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives'. Südosteuropa. Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft, Issue 59. OTHER REVIEWS: Richard C.M. Mole (2012), 'Review: De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives'. Slavonic and East European Review, Vol 90, No 3, pp. 590-592. Emma Spruce (2012), 'review of de-centring western sexualities: Central and Eastern European perspectives'. Feminist Review', Vol 101, No 1, pp. e3-e4. Subhadra Mitra Channa (2012), 'Review: De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives'. Anthropological Notebooks, Vol XVIII, Issue 1, pp. 109-110. ------------- FOR SAMPLE CHAPTERS PLS VISIT: http://robertkulpa.com/index.php?/published-articles/books/ CONTENTS: http://robertkulpa.com/images/stories/docs/De_Centring_Western_Sexualities_TOC.pdf INTRODUCTION: http://robertkulpa.com/images/stories/docs/De_Centring_Western_Sexualities_Intro.pdf INDEX: http://robertkulpa.com/images/stories/docs/De_Centring_Western_Sexualities_Index.pdf""

Sexuality & Culture, 2017

What causes change? This foundational question for historians has been answered, in the case of sexual liberalization, in a number of ways. Candidates for causing the large transformations regarding sexuality in the second half of the twentieth century have been found, among others, in medical/technological developments (the pill), social movements (sexual reform, sex radicals, GLBT), demography, the erosion of marriage morality, and the increase of sexual language/imagery in the public realm. But the history of sexual liberalization is not just a history of changes in social conduct, as Jeffrey Escoffier has argued, but also, or rather, a cultural revolution in which sexual scripts and grand narratives were being rewritten (Escoffier 2003). This observation points to the important cultural dimensions of sexual liberalization, including the role of cultural artefacts like novels, films, and music, and the ways these were circulated and received. These cultural dimensions are often taken for granted-boiling down in the conviction that cultural artefacts have lifted sexual taboos-but have not received all too much systematic attention. The questions however how sexual taboos were lifted, or how cultural products functioned as identification models for emancipating groups, in short how words and images helped change the world, are important to research, in order to better understand the (self-)fashioning of sexually liberated subjects. The seemingly close ties between literature and societal transformations in the sixties for example, whether they are inferred from censorship trials or activists' reading biographies, are remarkable and point to the function of literature in the post war period, when novels functioned as an important social platform for broaching moral controversies, and articulated seminal cultural repertoires for identity construction. As Elisabeth Ladenson has argued persuasively however, literature about sex is often not so much about sex, but rather about literature (Ladenson & Agnes Andeweg

Cambridge University Press, 2020

Introduction The most significant recent development, a break with the past, in the study of sexual cultures has to do with the term ‘culture’ itself: that we think of sexuality (and sexualities) as having ‘cultures’. Historically, both in academic and popular thinking, the term ‘sexuality’ most frequently elicited responses that have to do with biology. That is, whether as an area of study or as a set of ideas people have about their intimate lives, sexuality was too easily detached from the social contexts where it belongs and presented as something of itself. There is a strong tendency to view our sexual lives as dictated by their own peculiar rules that ( a ) are biologically derived, ( b ) have been historically stable (that is, the same since the ‘dawn of time’), ( c ) are ‘essentially’ about our ‘private’ lives, and ( d ) are ‘basically’ the same across different cultures. Ironically, while, on the one hand, we think of sexuality as a world-untoitself – such that it is regard...

Guest edited special edition of the Graduate Journal of Social Science edited by Arpita Das, Annelies Kleinherenbrink, and Dr. Ebtihal Mahadeen, which I had the pleasure & privilege of playing a part in supervising and bringing into being, in my role as GJSS Co-Editor in Chief. This exciting edition of the GJSS emerged from the 2011 NOISE Summer School: NOISE Summer School: The miraculous (dis-) appearing Act of Sexuality; Mapping the Study of Sexuality in Europe, 1960-2010.

De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives, eds. R. Kulpa and J. Mizielinska, 2011

The chapter reflects on the recent flourishing of works about nations, nationalism, and national identities in relation to homo/sexuality. Although there are recently more common attempts at discussing homo/sexuality and nationality (mainly within domain of 'sexual citizenship'), overall, there has been surprisingly little written about the sexual underpinnings of nationalistic politics, and about the nationalist dimension of gay politics. Thus, the article’s goal is to build up theoretical relation between literature on sexuality and nationalism, reflect on their intrinsic connections, and analyse any possible conjectural foundations on which further analytical work could be done. Author uses examples from CEE to round up his writng with the empirical flesh of examples and probing questions. Kulpa traces these relations of nation/al and sexual in the emerging discourses and uses of geo-temporal categories of 'progress,' 'West' and 'East,' 'transition.' By doing so, he critically engages with the writings of Jasbir Puar and Judith Butler, showing how neo-imperial politics of 'West' may operate not only as 'civilising' (and annihilating) mission, but also as 'pedagogical' (profiteering) one.

The American Historical Review, 1997

This book is part of a larger project to bring together articles by psychologists from the United States and the former Soviet Union and make them available to both English-and Russian-speaking audiences. The English-language version appeared first; the publication of the book in Russia, it is hoped, will follow shortly. The contributions to this volume were carefully chosen to reflect on contemporary changes in both post-Soviet and American societies. They are taken not from conventional academic subdivisions, but from the application of psychology to socially relevant issues: politics and persuasion, mental health, prejudice and ethnic conflicts, ecological and environmental problems. Following the editors' intention to highlight both differences and similarities between American and post-Soviet psychology, the book is organized in sections each containing parallel articles from U. S. and former Soviet scholars. Sometimes the articles complement each other, sometimes they stand in a striking but instructive contrast. Interestingly, the view that U.S. psychology is a "normal" science and that psychology in the former Soviet Union should orient itself by reference to the former is shared by many American and non-American contributors. While U. S. authors do not always emphasize the particular American setting of their studies and sometimes generalize their conclusions across cultures, their post-Soviet counterparts tend to stress the particular context of research. Some non-Americans make what they see as their cultural uniqueness into a research subject (specific Russian patterns of truth and lie-telling, specific motives for alcohol abuse, etc.). Others emphasize how their approaches differ from approaches in the West (the use of "psychosemantics" in studies of political attitudes, an existential approach to post-traumatic disorder). Even when non-American authors evaluate the differences between their own and Western studies as quantitative rather than qualitative, hoping that the areas previously non-existent in Soviet psychology will soon develop (e.g., research in advertising and gerontology), they accept Western psychology as a model. The difference between American and post-Soviet contributors is also reflected in their style: if the former are written in an "objective" language, with balanced and well-supported conclusions, the articles by the post-Soviet authors are often emotional, even bitter and angry, where the problems of their countries are concerned. Placed side-by-side with the stylistically highly professional American articles, the post-Soviet writers may appear "biased" to a Western reader. (Sometimes, as in the article on lying, a comparative study and much more evidence is indeed needed to support the author's conclusion that lying became the habit of everybody in Soviet society.) A reader curious about the psychology of everyday life in the emergent countries of the former Soviet Union and willing to interpret all the contributions in context, will have a rich time. To the reviewer, the book provided an abundance of material with which to reflect on the differences between psychological communities. The book also aroused thoughts that BOOK REVIEWS of sexology and psychiatry effectively dismissed the idea that homosexuality was a function of anatomical development, championing instead a model of psychopathological deviance. Bleys documents how this process was reflected by ethnographic depictions of samesex sexual practices-depictions that were mustered regularly in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century debates about the etiology of homosexuality. In this regard, chapter five is particularly illuminating, since it presents the positions of some of the seminal figures in these debates, among them the German zoologist and anthropologist Ferdinand Karsch-Haack and the British writers John Addington Symonds, Henry Havelock Ellis, and Edward Carpenter. If Foucault's History of Sexuality functions as one of the conceptual pillars of The Geography of Perversion, Edward Said's Orientalism serves as the other one. But much like Said-who has been taken to task for presenting the "Orient" both as a Western invention and as a site of genuine cultural difference-Bleys occasionally wanders on treacherous epistemological ground. On the one hand, he seeks to show how shifting images of non-Western same-sex sexual practices reflected European understandings of sodomy and homosexuality-a mode of argument that renders all European accounts of non-Western sexuality inherently suspect, since they appear less as the product of unbiased ethnographic observation than the result of systematic projections of European cultural inventories. While Bleys effectively mines his sources for historical biases, he, on the other hand, repeatedly seeks to recuperate them as truthful renditions of "actual" conditions. Especially in his discussions of the Arab world, Bleys often criticizes western thinkers' long-standing preoccupation with Arab same-sex sexuality while confirming cultural prominence of this configuration by recourse to the very sources his study compromises and deconstructs. If The Geography of Perversion shares some conceptual problems with Said's Orientalism; it is to Bleys' credit to have attempted a project of similar magnitude. And much like its model, The Geography of Perversion will be a definitive text for years to come.

Medical History, 2001