HIST 3800 - Queer Love in Modern Britain

Goals: To explore and analyze the contours of and prejudices against same-sex love between men and between women in Britain 1830-1980, and to compare these to the present day.

Content: This course is on queer identity and sex in Britain between approximately 1830 and 1980. We will work to understand the ways in which same-sex orientation was constructed, understood, lived out, tolerated, persecuted, and prosecuted. Topics include laws against sodomy, tensions between repression and thriving subcultures, aestheticism, sexology, cross-class relationships, key scandals and causes célèbres, feminism, the New Woman, butch/femme culture, the Gay Liberation Front, the rise of gay rights movements, lesbian separatism, and the recent popularity of “gender-critical” or TERF politics.

Taught: Alternate years

Prerequisite: Sophomore standing

Credits: 4