Unit name | Sexualities |
---|---|
Unit code | HIST30118 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Dr. Charnock |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
none |
Co-requisites |
none |
School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Over the last forty years, the history of sexuality has been at the forefront of historical investigation. Historians have attempted to chart attitudes towards, and experiences of, sex, sexuality and intimate relationships across a wide range of societies and over long periods of time.
This unit takes as its starting point Michel Foucault’s path-breaking text The History of Sexuality. Foucault argued that the discourse of sexuality as identity did not exist before the late nineteenth century; before this, he suggested, ‘sex’ had simply been a series of acts. This account had a profound influence on subsequent studies of sexuality, but questions have emerged over how accurately this model describes sexual cultures in the modern West, the pre-modern world, and non-Western societies.
This unit will consider the history of sexuality from a range of geographical and chronological perspectives. Drawing upon a variety of written, visual, theoretical and political sources, we will explore the relationship between sex and identity as well as how the histories of the body, the law, popular cultures and technology all shaped understandings of sexuality in the past.
This unit aims to:
Successful students will be able to:
Classes will involve a combination of long- and short-form lectures, class discussion, investigative activities, and practical activities. Students will be expected to engage with readings and participate on a weekly basis. This will be further supported with drop-in sessions and self-directed exercises with tutor and peer feedback.
1 x 2500-word Essay (50%), ILOs 1-5
1 x Timed Assessment (50%), ILOs 1-5
1 x Formative Presentation, ILOs 1-5
Foucault, Michel. The history of sexuality. Vol.1, The will to knowledge (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978).
Fisher, Kate and Sarah Toulalan (eds). The Routledge History of Sex and the Body, 1500 to the Present (London: Routledge, 2013).
Houlbrook, Matt and Cocks, H.G. (eds) Palgrave advances in the modern history of sexuality (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006).
Lacquer, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).
Weeks, Jeffrey. Sexuality (London: Tavistock, 1986).
Wieringa, Saskia and Horacio Sivori (eds). The Sexual History Of The Global South: Sexual Politics In Africa, Asia And Latin America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013).