Same-Sex Behaviour Nomenclature and the Sexological Construction of the Homosexual Personage in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Same-Sex Behaviour Nomenclature and the Sexological Construction of the Homosexual Personage in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Beyond Crime, Sin and Disease: Same-Sex Behaviour Nomenclature and the Sexological Construction of the Homosexual Personage in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century A thesis submitted to the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s in Arts degree in Social Sciences Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ottawa © Giancarlo Cerquozzi, Ottawa, Ontario, 2017 Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................................... II ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................... IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................................... V INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 1 RESEARCH PROBLEM AND OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 1 - THEORIES, METHODOLOGIES AND TERMINOLOGIES .................................... 8 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................................................................................... 8 METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................................................................ 16 TERMINOLOGY ......................................................................................................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2 - CROSS-CULTURAL ATTEMPTS AT CLASSIFYING SAME-SEX BEHAVIOUR BEFORE THE RISE OF SEXOLOGY .................................................................................................. 23 PEDERASTY .............................................................................................................................................................................. 25 LŪTĪ AND M’ABŪN .................................................................................................................................................................. 26 NANSHOKU, SHUDÖ AND OKAMA. ........................................................................................................................................ 29 SODOMY AND BUGGERY ......................................................................................................................................................... 31 DESCRIBING BEHAVIOUR OR A PERSONAGE? ..................................................................................................................... 34 CHAPTER 3 - GENDER IDEOLOGY IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT .............................. 36 MASCULINITY ........................................................................................................................................................................... 37 FEMININITY .............................................................................................................................................................................. 40 TRANSGRESSING GENDER NORMS ....................................................................................................................................... 41 CHAPTER 4 - KARL HEINRICH ULRICHS AND THE URNING’S SAME-SEX DRIVE ........... 44 EARLY INDICATIONS OF SAME-SEX BEHAVIOUR ............................................................................................................... 45 EXPANDING SAME-SEX BEHAVIOUR NOMENCLATURE .................................................................................................... 48 A CONGENITAL CONDITION .................................................................................................................................................. 50 IDENTIFIABLE MARKERS ....................................................................................................................................................... 52 FURTHER EXPANSION OF SAME-SEX BEHAVIOUR NOMENCLATURE ............................................................................ 55 PERSONAL MOTIVATIONS ...................................................................................................................................................... 57 LEGAL MOTIVATIONS ............................................................................................................................................................. 61 EXTENSION OF PARAGRAPH §143 ...................................................................................................................................... 63 CHAPTER 5 - THE HOMOSEXUALITÄT CONDITION: KÁROLY MÁRIA KERTBENY’S CLASSIFICATION OF SAME-SEX BEHAVIOUR ............................................................................ 68 INTRODUCTION TO HOMOSEXUALITÄT ................................................................................................................................ 69 AN APPEAL FOR TOLERANCE ................................................................................................................................................ 73 ULRICHS AND KERTBENY: THEORETICAL COMPARISONS ............................................................................................... 77 CHAPTER 6 - HENRY HAVELOCK ELLIS AND THE CASE FOR CONGENITAL SEXUAL INVERSION ............................................................................................................................................... 81 LEGAL MOTIVATIONS ............................................................................................................................................................. 83 EVALUATING SEXUAL INVERSION VIA CASE STUDIES ....................................................................................................... 85 THREE UNIQUE CONCEPTS .................................................................................................................................................... 87 SEXUAL INVERSION: BASED ON CONGENITAL CONDITIONS ............................................................................................. 90 PREVENTING SAME-SEX BEHAVIOUR .................................................................................................................................. 93 ii MARKERS OF SAME-SEX BEHAVIOUR .................................................................................................................................. 94 NATURAL VS. NORMAL ........................................................................................................................................................... 96 CHAPTER 7 - MAGNUS HIRSCHFELD AND THE THIRD SEX .................................................... 98 PERSONAL AND LEGAL MOTIVATIONS ............................................................................................................................. 100 SAPPHO AND SOCRATES: SAME-SEX BEHAVIOUR AS A NATURAL VARIATION .......................................................... 101 PETITION TO THE REICHSTAG: SAME-SEX BEHAVIOUR AS A NATURAL VARIATION ................................................ 104 ADDITIONAL MOTIVATIONS FOR LEGAL REFORM ......................................................................................................... 107 HOMOSEXUALITÄT AND THE THIRD SEX ........................................................................................................................... 108 MARKERS OF THE THIRD SEX ............................................................................................................................................. 110 DISCREPANCIES: ELLIS AND HIRSCHFELD ....................................................................................................................... 113 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................ 114 APPENDIX 1 - THEORETICAL REFERENCE CHART ................................................................. 121 APPENDIX 2 - GLOSSARY .................................................................................................................. 122 WORKS CITED ...................................................................................................................................... 125 iii Abstract Over the course of history, many cross-cultural efforts have been made to understand better the form and function of male same-sex behaviour. Initial naming exercises evaluated the sexual actions taken, and categorized these behaviours as expressions of crime, sin and disease. Various historical accounts note that it was in fin-de-siècle Germany and England, however, that several concepts were developed for the first time to encapsulate male same-sex behaviour, and to identify the type of men engaging in such conduct, in a more tolerant way. Operating within the taxonomic impulse of the eighteenth century, sexology — the scientific study of sexualities and sexual preferences that were considered to be unusual, rare, or marginalized — spurred the development of these new concepts. In the aim of better understanding humans through scientifically evaluating, quantifying,
Recommended publications
  • Urning: Representing Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and His Legacy Through the Mechanism of Theatre
    University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2019-06 Urning: Representing Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and His Legacy through the Mechanism of Theatre Diller, Ryan Diller, R. (2019). Urning: Representing Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and His Legacy through the Mechanism of Theatre (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/110571 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Urning: Representing Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and His Legacy through the Mechanism of Theatre by Ryan Diller A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN DRAMA CALGARY, ALBERTA JUNE, 2019 © Ryan Diller 2019 UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES The undersigned certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled “Urning: Representing Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and His Legacy through the Mechanism of Theatre” submitted by Ryan Diller in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Fine Arts. ____________________________________________________________ Supervisor, Professor Clement Martini, Department of Drama ___________________________________________________________ Dr. Patrick James Finn, Examination Committee Member, Department of Drama ____________________________________________________________ Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution & Politics of First-Wave Queer Activism
    “Glory of Yet Another Kind”: The Evolution & Politics of First-Wave Queer Activism, 1867-1924 GVGK Tang HIST4997: Honors Thesis Seminar Spring 2016 1 “What could you boast about except that you stifled my words, drowned out my voice . But I may enjoy the glory of yet another kind. I raised my voice in free and open protest against a thousand years of injustice.” —Karl Heinrich Ulrichs after being shouted down for protesting anti-sodomy laws in Munich, 18671 Queer* history evokes the familiar American narrative of the Stonewall Uprising and gay liberation. Most people know that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people rose up, like other oppressed minorities in the sixties, with a never-before-seen outpouring of social activism, marches, and protests. Popular historical discourse has led the American public to believe that, before this point, queers were isolated, fractured, and impotent – relegated to the shadows. The postwar era typically is conceived of as the critical turning point during which queerness emerged in public dialogue. This account of queer history depends on a social category only recently invented and invested with political significance. However, Stonewall was not queer history’s first political milestone. Indeed, the modern LGBT movement is just the latest in a series of campaign periods that have spanned a century and a half. Queer activism dawned with a new lineage of sexual identifiers and an era of sexological exploration in the mid-nineteenth century. German lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was first to devise a politicized queer identity founded upon sexological theorization.2 He brought this protest into the public sphere the day he outed himself to the five hundred-member Association 1 Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, The Riddle of "Man-Manly" Love, trans.
    [Show full text]
  • Uranianism by Ruth M
    Uranianism by Ruth M. Pettis Encyclopedia Copyright © 2015, glbtq, Inc. Entry Copyright © 2004, glbtq, inc. Reprinted from http://www.glbtq.com "Uranian" and "Uranianism" were early terms denoting homosexuality. They were in English use primarily from the 1890s through the first quarter of the 1900s and applied to concurrent and overlapping trends in sexology, social philosophy, and poetry, particularly in Britain. "Uranian" was a British derivation from "Urning," a word invented by German jurist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in the 1860s. In a series of pamphlets Ulrichs proposed a scheme for classifying the varieties of sexual orientation, assuming their occurrence in natural science. He recognized three principal categories among males: "Dionings" (heterosexuals), "Urnings" (homosexuals), and "Uranodionings" (bisexuals), based on their preferences for sexual partners. (A fourth category, hermaphrodites, he acknowledged but dismissed as occurring too infrequently to be significant.) Ulrichs further subdivided Urnings into those who prefer effeminate males, masculine males, adolescent males, and a fourth category who repressed their natural yearnings and lived heterosexually. Those who applied Ulrichs' system felt the need for Top: Edward Carpenter. analogous terms for women, and devised the terms "Urningins" (lesbians) and Center: John Addington "Dioningins" (heterosexual women). Symonds. Above: Walt Whitman. Images courtesy Library The term "Uranian" also alludes to the discussion in Plato's Symposium of the of Congress Prints and "heavenly" form of love (associated with Aphrodite as the daughter of Uranus) Photographs Division. practiced by those who "turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature." This type of love was distinguished from the "common" form of love associated with heterosexual love of women.
    [Show full text]
  • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
    Hubert Kennedy Karl Heinrich Ulrichs Pioneer of the Modern Gay Movement Peremptory Publications San Francisco 2002 © 2002 by Hubert Kennedy Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Pioneer of the Modern Gay Movement is a Peremtory Publica- tions eBook. It may be freely distributed, but no changes may be made in it. An eBook may be cited the same as a printed book. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Please write to [email protected]. 2 3 When posterity will one day have included the persecution of Urnings in that sad chapter of other persecutions for religious belief and race—and that this day will come is beyond all doubt—then will the name of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs be constantly remembered as one of the first and noblest of those who have striven with courage and strength in this field to help truth and charity gain their rightful place. Magnus Hirschfeld, Foreword to Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (1898) Magnus Hirschfeld 4 Contents Preface 6 1. Childhood: 1825–1844 12 2. Student and Jurist: 1844–1854 18 3. Literary and Political Interests: 1855–1862 37 4. Origins of the “Third Sex” Theory: 1862 59 5. Researches on the Riddle of “Man-Manly” Love: 1863–1865 67 6. Political Activity and Prison: 1866–1867 105 7. The Sixth Congress of German Jurists, More “Researches”: 1867–1868 128 8. Public Reaction, The Zastrow Case: 1868–1869 157 9. Efforts for Legal Reform: 1869 177 10. The First Homosexual Magazine: 1870 206 11. Final Efforts for the Urning Cause: 1871–1879 217 12. Last Years in Italy: 1880–1895 249 13.
    [Show full text]
  • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) Was Probably “The First Man in the World to Come Out.”
    Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian? Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) was probably “the First man in the world to come out.” Uranian -- 19th Century term used by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1864. BeFore this, “homosexuality” was known only as a behavior—sodomy— not a constitutional quality oF personality. Ulrichs developed a more complex threeFold axis For understanding sexual and gender variance: sexual orientation (male-attracted, bisexual, or Female-attracted), preferred sexual behavior (passive, no preference, or active), and gender characteristics (Feminine, intermediate, or masculine). The three axes were usually, but not necessarily, linked — Ulrichs himselF, For example, was a Weibling (Feminine homosexual) who preFerred the active sexual role. Ulrichs called homosexuals: Urnings (German) or Uranians. Uranus was the most recently discovered planet in 1781. Like Mars to males and Venus to Females, Uranus was to homosexuals. Reference to Uranus the planet is that this is something newly discovered even though it has always been there. Uranian came originally From Greek myth and Plato’s Symposium. Uranus was the god of the heavens and was said to be the Father oF Aphrodite in “a birth in which the Female had no part .” i.e, the distinction between male and Female is unimportant. In those early days, the German Sexologists, including Magnus Hirschfeld (1868- 1935), thought homosexuals were Female souls trapped/reincarnated in male bodies. Homosexual was coined by Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824-1882) in 1869 in an anonymous pamphlet about Prussian sodomy laws. Kertbeny was a travel writer and journalist who wrote about human rights. When he was a young man, a gay Friend killed himselF because oF extortion.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Notes Introduction 1. See Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast: Sexuality and the Early Feminists (London: Penguin, 1995); Joseph Bristow, Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1997). 2. Franz X. Eder, Lesley Hall and Gert Hekma (eds), Sexual Cultures in Europe: National Histories (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999) and their Sexual Cultures in Europe: Themes in Sexuality (Manchester: Manch- ester University Press, 1999). See also Lucy Bland and Laura Doan (eds), Sexology in Culture: Labelling Bodies and Desires (Cambridge: Polity, 1998); Carolyn J. Dean, Sexuality and Modern Western Culture (New York: Twayne, 1996); John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Vernon A. Rosario (ed.), Science and Homosexualities (New York: Routledge, 1997). 3. Important studies include Bland, Banishing the Beast; Laura Doan, Fashion- ing Sapphism: The Origins of a Modern Lesbian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Martha Vicinus, Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778–1928 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Sharon Marcus, Between Women: Friendship, Desire and Marriage in Victo- rian England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); Joseph Bristow, Effeminate England: Homosexual Writing After 1885 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Matt Cook, London and the Culture of Homo- sexuality, 1885–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); David Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other Essays on Greek Love (New York: Routledge, 1990); Harry Oosterhuis, Stepchildren of Nature: Krafft-Ebing, Psychiatry and the Making of Sexual Identity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 4. Gert Hekma, ‘ “A Female Soul in a Male Body”: Sexual Inversion as Gender Inversion in nineteenth-Century Sexology’, in Gilbert Herdt (ed.), Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History (New York: Zone Books, 1994), 213–39.
    [Show full text]
  • The Roman Historian Tacitus Reports That the Germanic Tribes
    Student/Teacher Copy TIMELINE OF GERMAN LGBT HISTORY Prepared by Jim Steakley, Department of German, UW-Madison for GSAFE 98 – The Roman historian Tacitus reports that the Germanic tribes execute homosexuals (corpores infames, “those who disgracefully abuse their bodies”) and sink them into swamps. Remains of several such corpses have been found in the peat bogs of Denmark and northern Germany and are now exhibited in museums. Some had been strangled to death prior to being sunk in the bogs, while others were apparently drowned alive. ca. 500 – The Germanic tribes living south of Scandinavia gradually convert to Christianity and find their homophobic outlook confirmed by the Roman Catholic condemnation of homosexuality. Yet the Germans do not adopt the church- inspired edicts promulgated in 342 and 390 by Christian Roman emperors, who had called for burning homosexuals at the stake. Instead, the Germans maintain their own legal practices, which rely on oral tradition. ca. 800 – Invoking biblical sources, several admonitions and injunctions against homosexual acts are promulgated in the Holy Roman Empire established by the Frankish king Charlemagne. His son and successor Louis the Pious is especially homophobic, blaming Noah’s Flood on homosexuals and endorsing St. Paul’s call for the death penalty (Rom.1:27-32). ca. 900 – In still-pagan Viking society, calling a man a homosexual (arg, “effeminate, cowardly”) is a slur that requires the offended individual to challenge his insulter to a duel. Failure to respond to the libel brings not just dishonor but also the legal status of “outlawry,” which allows anyone to stalk and slay the insulted man without penalty.
    [Show full text]
  • On Magnus Hirschfeld's Sexual Ethnology and China's Sapiential
    J. Edgar Bauer: Sexuality and its nuances: On Magnus Hirschfeld’s sexual ethnology and China’s sapiential heritage Sexuality and its nuances: On Magnus Hirschfeld’s sexual ethnology and China’s sapiential heritage J. Edgar Bauer Independent researcher, [email protected] Abstract Between November 1930 and March 1932, German-Jewish sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935) undertook a trip around the world, eventually visiting the United States (where he was greeted as the ‘Dr. Einstein of sex’), Japan, China, Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Egypt, and Palestine. The resulting travel report, entitled Weltreise eines Sexualforschers (1933), is generally considered one of the foundational texts of the then-emerging discipline of sexual ethnology, and comprises the first non-Eurocentric, anti-colonialist critique of Asian cultures from a sexological perspective. Taking into account Hirschfeld’s overarching design to dissolve close schemes of sexual, racial and cultural taxonomies, the study focuses on his assessment of China’s religiously neutral, sober approach of sexual realities as ‘a world-wide exception’ intimately connected to its Confucian and Taoistic heritage, and resonating with the core premises of his Spinozian-inspired and Darwinian-based sexology. Notwithstanding his praise of Chinese sexual realism, however, Hirschfeld argued that China’s sexual mores (Sitten) – like all other sexual mores to date – fail to suffice the criteria of a universally valid sexual morality (Sittlichkeit). While the binary schemes of sexual distribution on which sexual mores are preponderantly grounded misconstrue the complexities of individual sexualities and foster, as compensation, the escapism into the non-constraints of other-worldly utopias, Hirschfeld’s postulation of potentially infinite, uniquely nuanced sexualities leads to a radical blueprint of intra-historic sexual emancipation.
    [Show full text]
  • Kraepelin and the `Urnings': Male Homosexuality in Psychiatric
    Kraepelin and the ‘urnings’: male homosexuality in psychiatric discourse Florian Mildenberger To cite this version: Florian Mildenberger. Kraepelin and the ‘urnings’: male homosexuality in psychiatric discourse. History of Psychiatry, SAGE Publications, 2007, 18 (3), pp.321-335. 10.1177/0957154X07079796. hal-00570900 HAL Id: hal-00570900 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00570900 Submitted on 1 Mar 2011 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. History of Psychiatry, 18(3): 321–335 Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore) www.sagepublications.com [200709] DOI: 10.1177/0957154X07079796 Kraepelin and the ‘urnings’: male homosexuality in psychiatric discourse FLORIAN MILDENBERGER* Historian, Munich The discourse on male homosexuality – whether it deserved punishment or possible therapies for homosexuals – was significantly shaped by the physician Magnus Hirschfeld between 1900 and 1933. He fought passionately against §175 of the Penal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch), which made homosexual acts between men punishable by law. Initially, Emil Kraepelin, the doyen of German psychiatry, and his students did not join in this discourse and only gradually developed their own ideas about homosexuality. The radicalization of German physicians in World War I led to a complete break between Hirschfeld and Kraepelinian psychiatry.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Movements : Concepts, Experiences and Concerns
    Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2020 Queer Movements Ghosh, Banhishikha Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-199779 Book Section Published Version Originally published at: Ghosh, Banhishikha (2020). Queer Movements. In: Ghosh, Biswajit. Social Movements : Concepts, Experiences and Concerns. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi: SAGE Publishing, 321-338. Social Movements Concepts, Experiences and Concerns Edited by Biswajit Ghosh Professor, Department of Sociology, The University of Burdwan, Bardhaman, West Bengal Sage │ Text Los Angeles │ London │ New Delhi First Published: 2020 ISSN: 973-93-532-8739-9 (PB) CONTENTS List of Figures xv List of Tables xvii List of Abbreviations xix Preface xxiii About the Editor xxv About the Contributors xxvii Section I. Social Movements: Conceptual Dimensions Chapter 1 Concepts, Issues and Approaches to Social Movements 3 Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada Chapter 2 Social Movements and Their Types 28 Jyotiprasad Chatterjee Chapter 3 The Dynamic Triad: State, Market and Social Movement 52 Subhasis Bandyopadhyay Chapter 4 Social Change and Social Movements: Issues of Leadership and Ideology 68 Swatahsiddha Sarkar Chapter 5 Ebb and Flow of Social Movements in Liberal Democracy 86 Rabindra Garada Section II. Social Movements in India Chapter 6 Peasant and Farmers’ Movement 109 Jyotiprasad Chatterjee Chapter 7 Tribal Movements 132 Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain Chapter 8 Naxalite and Maoist Movements 152 Biswajit Ghosh Chapter 9 Dalit Movements 170 Vivek Kumar Chapter 10 Working Class Movements 188 Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri Chapter 11 Women’s Movement 209 Ritu Sen Chaudhuri Chapter 12 Ethnic Identity Movements 229 Biswajit Ghosh vi SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Chapter 13 Environmental Movements 248 Shoma Choudhury Lahiri Chapter 14 Student and Youth Movements 264 Anirban Banerjee Section III.
    [Show full text]
  • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs First Theorist of Homosexuality Hubert Kennedy
    In Science and Homosexualities, ed. Vernon Rosario (pp. 26–45). New York: Routledge, 1997. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs First Theorist of Homosexuality Hubert Kennedy Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was the first to formulate a scientific theory of homosexual- ity.1 Indeed, his theory implicated, as Klaus Müller has emphasized, “the first scientific theory of sexuality altogether” (1990, 100). It was set forth and elaborated in five writ- ings published in 1864 to 1865. The series of writings was continued—there were twelve in all, the last appearing in 1879—but with only slight revisions in the theory, Ulrichs’s intention in his writings was not merely explanatory, but also—and especially—emanci- patory. This was based on his view that the condition of being homosexual is inborn. This was a major departure from previous and subsequent theories that saw the practice of homosexuality/“sodomy” as an acquired vice. In this Ulrichs was the first in a long and continuing line of researchers who believe that a proof of the “naturaless” of homosexu- ality, that is, the discovery of a biological basis for it, will lead to equal legal and social treatment of hetero- and homosexuals. If this attempt seems quixotic, it is nevertheless of historical importance to investigate its origins in the writings of Ulrichs. We shall see that Ulrichs’s influence goes beyond any “emancipatory” intent. The son of an architect in the service of the Kingdom of Hannover, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was born on August 28, 1825, on his father’s estate of Westerfeld near Aurich. Following his father’s death in 1835, Ulrichs moved with his mother to Burgdorf, to live with her father, a Lutheran superintendent.
    [Show full text]
  • Tabulating Queer: Space, Perversion, and Belonging
    240 Knowl. Org. 36(2009)No.4 P. Keilty. Tabulating Queer: Space, Perversion, and Belonging Tabulating Queer: Space, Perversion, and Belonging Patrick Keilty University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Information Studies, GSE&IS Building, Box 951520, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1520, USA <[email protected]> Patrick Keilty is a PhD candidate in the Department of Information Studies, with a concentration in the Women's Studies Department at UCLA. His research considers what differences feminism, gender studies, sexuality studies, and notions of queer, make to prevailing ideas about information structure, seeking, and ethics. Keilty, P. Tabulating Queer: Space, Perversion, and Belonging. Knowledge Organization, 36(4), 240- 248. 21 references. ABSTRACT: Considering fields as diverse as the history of science, Internet studies, border studies, and coalition politics, the article gives an historical overview of how the knowledge around queer phe- nomena has been structured, tabulated, and spacialized: the hazards, coercive and productive qualities, as well as queer's para- doxical relationship as both resistant to and reliant on categories, classification, and knowledge structures. In the process, the article also considers the development of Western hierarchical knowledge structures in relation to societal power dynamics, proximity, and space. 1. Introduction Nevertheless, much of the philosophical back- ground of knowledge organization, such as systems As with border studies, “belonging” is a central con- philosophy, insists that general laws and principles cern in the study of classification, grouping things in underline all phenomena, allowing for its organiza- relation to where they belong, where they don’t be- tion (Svenonius 2000, 3). Yet this assertion sounds long, and why things belong in one class and not an- mechanistic, teleological and monolithic: mechanis- other.
    [Show full text]