History of Sexuality

In this online course, we will consider the impact of social, economic, and political conditions on social constructions of sexuality, from the classical world of Greece and Rome, to the early modern West, to the streets of Victorian London and 1920s New York. Topics of interest include: the prostitutes of New Orleans' Storyville district; Jack the Ripper and sensational media accounts of crimes of passion; the taverns and bawdy houses of colonial Philadelphia; cases of sexual misconduct in premodern Europe, Latin America; and colonial America; the history of sexual harassment in the American workplace; the history of hermaphrodites and transgendered people; JFK and representations of 20th-century masculinity. We will pay special attention to the ways that race, class, religion, and gender come together to shape power dynamics through the development, change, and continuity in sexual roles, norms, and relationships.