What is Sexual History?

Jeffrey Weeks is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at London South Bank University.

• ContentsPreface and AcknowledgementsAn IntroductionWhat is a History of Sexuality a History of?NarrativesSummary of BookChapter 1: Framing Sexual HistoryTowards a Critical Sexual HistoryTheoretical DetoursBodiesSubjectivities and AffectGenerationsTimes Present, Times Past, Times FutureChapter 2: The Invention of Sexual HistoryThe Magic of WordsThe Natural History of SexualityThe New HistoryThe Emergence of Social ConstructionismChapter 3: Querying and Queering Same-sex HistoryWhat is Homosexual History?Recovering the Gay and Lesbian Past, and Historic PresentDeconstructing and Reconstructing the HomosexualThe Queer ChallengeBeyond the BinaryMaking ConnectionsChapter 4: Gender, Sexuality and PowerDangers and PleasuresSexual Violence and Sexual HistoryHistoricizing Female SexualitySexuality and the Theory WarsRethinking PowerIntersectionsOn Manliness, Masculinity, and MenChapter 5: Mainstreaming Sexual HistoryInto the MainstreamThe Birth of Modern Sexuality?The Normalization of HeterosexualityThe Great TransitionAIDS and the Burdens of HistorySame-sex Marriage and New Patterns of IntimacyChapter 6: The Globalization of Sexual HistoryGlobalizing Sexual HistoryHistorians and Transnational Sexual HistoryPatterns of Sexual HistoryThe Colonial Legacy and the Postcolonial CritiqueSexual Regimes, Sexual LivesHistory and Human Sexual RightsChapter 7: Memory, Community, VoiceUnofficial Knowledges and Counter-historyMemory and CommunityThe Sexual ArchiveVoiceLiving Sexual HistorySuggestions for Further ReadingNotesIndex

�For over forty years, with flawless erudition, Jeffrey Weeks has been leading us through the exciting history of the shifting meanings, manners, conflicts and victories around sexual intimacies. In this elegantly succinct overview we can learn all we need to know about debates surrounding the continuing complexities of people�s ability to flaunt and enjoy their sexual desires. An essential guide for everyone.�Lynne Segal, Birkbeck, University of London�This is a learned, ecumenical, broad-ranging, elegantly written and altogether engaging account of the history of sexuality. No student or general reader could want a better-informed, more thoughtful and generous guide to the field than Jeffrey Weeks. Most importantly this book shows that the history of sexuality illuminates not only contemporary debates but the ways we understand our past more generally.�Thomas Laqueur, University of California, Berkeley