Please submit your abstracts words until 31 October Working languages are German and English. The workshop will be followed by a publication in the form of a special issue in a peer-reviewed journal. Oktober Der Workshop findet am Die Workshopsprachen sind Deutsch und Englisch. Sexuality is at the center of contemporary social movements. The MeToo movement against sexual abuse, harassment and violence since and the LGBTQ movements advocating for equal rights, benefits and protection from harm for queer people have gained momentum world-wide, sparking also a growing interest in the history of sexuality.
Schwules und lesbisches Leben in der Bundesrepublik. This workshop will look at the period that preceded it โ without seeing this period as a prehistory to sexual liberation. Instead, it aims to discuss notions of temporality, of progress and regression, as contingent phenomena. We invite papers that explore the relationship between pleasurable, reproductive and violent practices of sexuality since the mid-nineteenth century.
Social history: Which practices strengthened, which blurred class boundaries? Have sexual practices become more bourgeois? Which role did class play in violent sexual encounters and in potentially ensuing court cases? History of religion: How did church officials try to influence sexual behavior? How did religious norms influence actual practices?
History of science: How did new medical, biological and psychological concepts of sexuality influence actual practices? Colonial history: How were race and gender relations in colonial territories negotiated through sexual encounters? Gender history: Which impact did sexuality have on gender relations? Which sexual practices contributed to the opposition of femininity and masculinity; which complicated the binary gender model?
In addition, we would also like to reflect on possible and promising sources to answer these and other questions. Which sources and methodologies can we use to reconstruct sexual practices that are often only implicitly visible?
