HIST 323

Catalog description

Critiques the standard “Great Man” narrative of Modern European history through the lens of gender and sexuality, emphasizing the intersectionality of race, religion, and nationality. Works chronologically from 1750 to the present, exploring topics including: Enlightenment ideas about anatomy and sex organs; feminist interpretations of the French Revolution; marriage and domesticity; masculinity and effeminacy; the relationship between gender and (dis)ability; imperial-era sexual encounters; the policing of prostitution, masturbation, and pornography; early theories of homosexual and trans identities; fascism, sexual violence, and the world wars; and discourses surrounding immigrant sexualities. Includes study of historiography—the changing theories and methods that historians have used to understand the past—and examines how the fields of “women’s history,” “gender history,” “the history of sexuality,” “the history of homosexuality,” and “queer history” have developed from the 1970s until today.