Syncopated Sex: Transforming European Sexual Cultures

Medical History, 2001

Sexualities, 2016

Many of the mentioned works map the late socialist and postsocialist histories underlying key aspects of present sexualities and sexual politics. Yet despite the tremendous recent growth of scholarly literatures expanding our knowledge of the history of sexuality in general, as well as specifically in Europe (both insightfully reviewed by Herzog 2009 and 2013, respectively), the importance of excavating the older histories of sexuality which have shaped Europe's postsocialist present, and its thinking about sexuality and its personal, social, and political significances, has been, as Herzog (2013) notes, relatively neglected. Recently emerging scholarship is beginning to direct attention to such concerns, as new and important studies on sex work under late Habsburg rule (Stauter-Halsted, 2011; Wingfield, 2011), sexual intimacies in East Germany (McLellan, 2011), and queer urban life in late 19thand early 20th-century Budapest (Kurimay, 2012) demonstrate. Much of the balance of research on the history of Eastern European sexualities, however, has focused on Russia and the Soviet Union (e.g. Engelstein, 1994; Healey, 2009; Naiman, 1999); the specific roots of sexual regimes elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe still require further investigation. Moreover, while since Foucault, science has been seen as central to the meanings and effects of both modern concepts of sexuality and modern biopolitics more generally, and histories of sexual science have been powerful analytical and theoretical tools for thinking about sexuality as personally, socially, and politically consequential in both Western Europe and the West's colonial encounters, surprisingly little attention has been paid to its presence and implications in scholarship on Central and Eastern Europe sexualities. As Stauter-Halsted and Wingfield (2011: 216-217) note, despite the fact that Central and Eastern Europe were at the very center of scientific and legal research on sex and sexuality in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the study of sexuality and its science in the region is 'still in its nascent stages.' Here too, important work is beginning to emerge (Kos´cian´ska, 2014a; Lisˇkova´, 2013; see also the special May 2011 issue of the Journal of the History of Sexuality edited by Stauter-Halsted and Wingfield). Yet, as already mentioned, much current research has focused on Russia and the Soviet Union (e.g. Healey, 2009; Kowalski, 2009) at the expense of Central and Eastern European sexual-scientific histories. In addition, the critical potential that science can have for not only naturalizing sexual identities and relationships and their social and political meanings, but for the linking of these naturalized meanings to their lasting effects on the borders of Europeanness and modernityand thus their significance for present tensions over sexuality between Europe's East and West-remains to be fully examined. We believe, however, that the role of science as discourse and practice is critical to fully understanding Central and Eastern European histories of sexuality and their legacies. Histories of

Le colloque se propose d’examiner l’histoire des conceptions de la sexualité qui ont été mobilisées – explicitement ou implicitement – dans les différentes constructions sexologiques depuis le dix-neuvième siècle jusqu’aux temps présents. Le champ des connaissances, des théories et des pratiques – le dispositif – qui sont désignées sous le terme de « sexologie » renvoie à des conceptions spécifiques de la sexualité. La sexologie constitue une forme de réponse sociale – et surtout médicale, psychologique, psychiatrique et parfois légale – aux questions posées par les humains à propos de « leur sexualité ». Et à leur tour, les savoirs élaborés par la sexologie influencent la formulation des questions que se posent les personnes sur « leur sexualité ». Une histoire des orientations de la sexologie, dans ses grands traits, est marquée par le passage d’une « proto-sexologie » plus volontiers centrée sur les perversions et les déviances, à une consolidation du champ autour de l’observation, la mesure et le traitement de la « fonction de l’orgasme » et de ses difficultés d’accomplissement. Le décloisonnement de la sexologie du domaine de la pathologie s’observe également dans l’intérêt pour l’observation et la mesure des comportements sexuels en population (Béjin, 1982). Le champ de la sexologie se transforme actuellement avec l’émergence de la « médecine sexuelle », la « santé sexuelle » et les « droits sexuels », évolutions qui doivent être prises en compte car elles contribuent à la reformulation des théories de la sexualité. This two-day conference proposes to examine the history of conceptions of sexuality and of gender relations that have, explicitly or implicitly, been used in sexological “constructions” since the mid-19th century. The knowledge, theories and practices to which “sexology” refers imply specific conceptions of sexuality. Sexology is a social (and, above all, medical, psychological, psychiatric or even legal) response to the questions people ask about “their sexuality”. Its history has shifted from a “proto-sexology”, centered around perversions and deviancies, to a second phase with a focus on the “function of orgasm” and on sexual behaviors (Béjin 1982). Sexology is evolving with the emergence of “sexual medicine”, “sexual health” and “sexual rights”, trends that weigh on the reformulation of theories of sexuality. Papers will present material from medical, scientific or educational sources or from institutions involved in the medicalization of sexuality. The accepted papers will be grouped by subject, geographical area, historical period or historiographical approach as a function of the two-day program, and each group will be assigned a discussant who will Chair the session and open discussion of the papers presented. Abstracts and papers can be submitted and presented in English or French. There will not be official simultaneous translation during the conference. Participants are expected to understand both languages. Plans are in the works for editing the papers presented at the conference for a book to be published by a French publishing house specialized in multidisciplinary books.

The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality. P. Whelehan and A. Bolin (eds.), Wiley & Sons, 2015

Any approach to sexuality in ancient Europe primarily involves speaking about bodies: about paintings and sculptures of bodies, adorned bodies, buried bodies, bodies that give us information about questions of identity and sexual practices. The field known as "archaeology of the body, " with influences from phenomenology and feminist theory, has shown the relevance of studying the bodies of individuals from the past in order to explore their experiences and their relations with the world and with the people around them. On the basis of this idea, archaeology attempts to offer a view of the body as an instrument through which all the knowledge of a society is created and transmitted. All this information is conveyed to us in a variety of formats: first, through bodies depicted in engravings, paintings, and figurines or sculptures, using a wide range of raw materials (stone, bone, marble, metal, and so on) and an equally wide range of ways to represent bodies, genders, and sexes; second, through the discov

The SAGE Handbook of Historical Theory, 2013

Survey of the field through 2009, from antiquity to the present, worldwide. Historicizes the study of the history of sexuality as a byproduct of the secularization of the academy starting in the late nineteenth century.

Acta Poloniae Historica, 2009

Centaurus, Vol. 65, No. 1, p. 197-200, 2023

Several dimensions of sexology, in particular its versatility and diverse professional, sociopolitical and (inter)national contexts, come to the fore in the edited volume Histories of Sexology. This collection, which consists of eighteen chapters by authors from varied disciplinary and national backgrounds and an introduction by one of the editors, the French sexologist Alain Giami, presents the fruits of an international symposium held in Paris in 2017. Whereas earlier work on the history of sexology has focused on German speaking Central Europe, France and the Anglo-Saxon world, this collection also includes contributions about Eastern Europe, Spain and Latin America.

Radical History Review, 1979

Sexuality-the subject matter seems so obvious that it hardly appears to need comment. An immense and ever-increasing number of "discourses" has been devoted to its exploration and control during the last few centuries, and their very production has, as Foucault points out, been a major characteristic of bourgeois society. Yet, ironically, as soon as we attempt to apply the concept to history, apparently insurmountable problems confront us.