Theory

Essentialism vs Social Constructionism

Boswell, John

"Categories, experience and sexuality", in Stein, Forms of desire (1992, 1990), 133-73.

Davidson, Arnold I.

"Sex and the emergence of sexuality", Critical Inquiry, 14 (1987-88), pp. 16-48.

Butler, Judith

Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex". New York: Routledge, 1993.

Davidson, James

"Dover, Foucault and Greek Homosexuality. Penetration and the Truth of Sex", in Past & Present, 170 (February 2001), pp. 3-51. This essay was awarded the George Mosse Prize 2002 for the best essay in gay and lesbian history for the years 2000/1. The following comment was made at the award presentation: "Davidson's wide-ranging and comprehensive article is original, innovative and thorough, profound and yet delightfully provocative. For Davidson critiques Kenneth Dover, but above challenges the great Foucault, using an impressive range of early and contemporary sources. A daring mission, he completes in a brilliant and sophisticated way, arguing that penetration was discursively placed at the centre of Greek sexuality by Kenneth Dover and Michel Foucault, constructed as an active/passive distinction and as such understood as the crux of male same sex eroticism. Linking penetration to power and politics the authors encouraged a discourse of sexualization of Greek male same sex eroticism. A discourse that recent scholarship has picked up and enfolded further. Idea and image of Platonic love was lost. Though Davidson wouldn't want to return to an exclusively platonic explanation of homosexual sex. Why this construction took place you can read in his article. Various complex arguments are given of which a most interesting and challenging one is homophobia. Interesting of course because you know that Foucault himself was homosexual."

Dynes, Wayne R.

"Wrestling with the social boa constructor", in Stein, Forms of desire (1992, 1990), 209-38.

Boswell, John

"Revolutions, universals, and sexual categories", Salmagundi (1982-83), 58-59. Reprinted with revisions in Duberman et al., Hidden from History (1989), pp. 17-36.

Epstein, Steven

"Gay politics, ethnic identity: The limits of social constructionism", Socialist Review, 93/94 (May-August 1987), 9-54, reprinted in Stein, Forms of desire (1992, 1990), 239-93.

Halperin, David M.

"Forgetting Foucault: Acts, identities, and the history of sexuality", Representations, 63 (1998): 93-120.

Halperin, David M.

"How to do the history of male homosexuality", GLQ, 6 (2000): 87-124.

Halperin, David M.

How to Do the History of Homosexuality. University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Halperin, David M.

"Is there a history of sexuality?", in Abelove et al., The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (1993), 416-31.

McIntosh, Mary

"The homosexual role", Social Problems, 16 (Fall 1968), 182-92, reprinted in Stein, Forms of desire (1992, 1990), 25-42.

Mohr, Richard

"The thing of it is: some problems with the models for the social construction of homosexuality", in Gay Ideas, Boston, 1992, chap 7. Boswell calls this "a brilliant critique".

Norris, Christopher

Reclaiming the Truth: Contribution to a Critique of Cultural Relativism. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1996.

Norton, Rictor

The Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity. London and Washington: Cassell, 1997.

Padgug, Robert

"Sexual matters: On conceptualizing sexuality in history", Radical History Review 20 (Spring/Summer 1979), 3-23, reprinted in Stein, Forms of desire (1992, 1990)), 43-67.

Richardson, Diane

"The dilemma of essentiality in homosexual theory", Journal of Homosexuality, 9 (1983-4), pp. 79-90.

Stein, Edward (ed.)

Forms of desire: Sexual orientation and the social constructionist controversy. New York and London: Routledge, 1992 (Garland, 1990).

Stein, Edward

"Conclusion: The essentials of constructionism and the construction of essentialism", in Stein, Forms of desire (1992, 1990), 323-53.

Stein, Edward

"Introduction" to Forms of desire (1992, 1990), 3-9.

Weinrich, James

"Reality or social construction?", from Sexual Landscapes: Why We Are What We Are, Why We Love Who We Love (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1987), reprinted in Stein, Forms of desire (1992, 1990), 175-208.

Gay and Lesbian Historiography

Auchtmuthy, Rosemary, Jeffreys, Sheila and Miller, Elaine

"Lesbian history and gay studies: keeping a feminist perspective", Women's History Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (1992), pp. 89-108.

Boswell, John

Rediscovering Gay History. Michael Harding Memorial Address, c. 1982. (Copy in the British Library: X.529/52574)

Boswell, John

"Gay history", Atlantic Monthly (February 1989), pp. 74-8.

D'Emilio, John

"Making and unmaking minorities: the tensions between gay politics and history", New York University Review of Law and Social Change, 14 (1986), pp. 915-22.

Duggan, Lisa

"The discipline problem: Queer theory meets lesbian and gay history", GLQ 2, (1995): 179-91.

Duggan, Lisa

"History's gay ghetto: the contradictions of growth in lesbian and gay history", in Susan Porter Benson et al. (eds), Presenting the Past: Essays on History and the Public, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986, pp. 281-92.

Lovaas, Karen E. Lovaas, John P. Elia, Gust A. Yep, eds.

LGBT Studies and Queer Theory: New Conflicts, Collaborations, and Contested Terrain (2007)

Roscoe, Will

"Making history: the challenge of gay and lesbian scholarship", Journal of Homosexuality, 15 (1988), pp. 1-40.

Return to Bibliography of Gay and Lesbian History