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SEX AND SOCIETY, c.1860 c.1928

Course Outline
The course aims to: Enable students to develop a critical understanding of methods, issues, debates and materials relating to the study of sex and sexuality in Britain, c.1860 c.1928 Enable students to develop an understanding of the relationship between sex and sexuality and issues of gender, class, Empire and nation Enable students to develop skills in the practice of cultural history, including the use of literary material Enable students to consolidate study and research skills, including effective oral and written communication

In preparation for each session you should read all the core primary material and at least two pieces from the secondary sources listed (or from the relevant section of the extended reading list). You are also encouraged to monitor press and journal coverage of particular issues and scandals wherever possible (see attached list of journals and newspapers available in the library) and to share your findings with the group. SEMESTER 1 Week 1 Introduction Introduction and course overview Week 2 Prostitution and the Contagious Diseases Acts Context: Focus: Essay: Prostitution and Victorian society The Contagious Diseases Acts (1866, 1866, 1869) and the campaign for repeal The public debate about the Contagious Diseases Acts provides a microcosm of the sexual fears and prejudices of the Victorian age. Discuss.

Primary Sources Core Extract from the Westminster Review (vol. 53, 1850) Extracts from the Report from the Commission on the Contagious Diseases Acts (1871) William Acton, Prostitution Considered from its Social and Sanitary Aspects (1870); Josephine Butler, An Appeal to the People of England (1870); Ladies National Association; what it is, and why it is still needed (c.1890) in S.Jeffires, The Sexuality Debates (1987) William Moore, The Necessity of Re-establishing the CDA (1894) Additional William Acton, Prostitution (1857)

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W.G.Greg, Prostitution, Westminster Review, 53 (1850), 448 - 506 Report from the Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases Acts (1871) [Nuffield library] Henry Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, vol. iv (Prostitution) Sheila Jeffries, ed, The Sexuality Debates (1987), esp. pt IIa K.Nield, Prostitution in the Victorian Age:: Debates on the Issues from Nineteenth Century Critical Journals (1973)

Secondary Sources L.Bland, Banishing the Beast, (1995), esp. ch. 3 L.Nead, Myths of Sexuality: Representations of Women in Victorian Britain (1988), chs 3,4 & 5 Frank Mort, Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England since 1830 (1987), esp. part 2 E.M.Sigsworth and T.J.Wyke, A study of Victorian Prostitution and Venereal Disease, in M.Vicinus, ed., Suffer and Be Still (1973) M.Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease: Representations of Women in Victorian Britain (1997) K.Thomas, The Double Standard, Journal of the History of Ideas, 20 (1959) J.Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society (1980) J.Walkowitz, Male Vice and Female Virtue: feminism and the Politics of Prostitution in Nineteenth Century Britain, History Workshop Journal, 13, 1982 J.Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society (1989), esp. ch.5 Week 3 The Maiden tribute of Modern Babylon (1885) Context: Focus: Essay: Moral panics and the new journalism The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon and the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885) Explain the concept of moral panic and assess its usefulness in understanding the reaction to the Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon articles

Primary Sources Core Extracts from the Pall Mall Gazette (July 1885) Extracts from the Lancet and the BMJ (July/August 1885) The Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885) Review of Reviews (July 1912) Additional Hansard, House of Commons (31 July 1885) Newspaper and periodical reaction to the Maiden Tribute articles and the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (July/August 1885) Secondary Sources L.Bland, Banishing the Beast, (1995), esp. ch. 3 E.Bristow, Vice and Vigilance: Purity Movements in Britain since 1700 (1977) D.Gorham, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon re-examined: child prostitution and the idea of childhood in late-Victorian Britain, Victorian Studies (1978) L.Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England (2000), esp. Intro and Masculinity and the Child Abuser

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Judith Walkowitz, City of dreadful delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (1992), esp. chs 3 & 4 J.Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society (1989), esp. ch.5. For reading on social control and moral panics see extended reading list

Week 4 The City and Sexual Crime Context: Focus: Essay: London c.1888 The Jack the Ripper murders (1888) and R.L.Stevensons The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1887) The interesting historical questions about Jack the Ripper have little to do with who did it. Discuss.

Primary Sources Core R.L.Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1887) Extracts re: outcast London G.B.Barron, The Constitutional Characteristics of Dwellers in Large Towns as Relating to Degeneracy (1888) Extracts from the Illustrated Police News (1888) Additional Local and national newspaper coverage of the ripper murders (Aug. Nov. 1888) Andrew Mearns, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London Extracts from Henry Mayhew in M.Fitzgerald, Crime and Society (1981) Secondary Sources W.Fishman, East End 1888 (1988) C.Frayling, The House that Jack Built: Some Stereotypes of the Rapist in the History of Modern Culture, in R.Porter and S.Tomaselli, eds, Rape (1986) S.Gilman, The Jews Body (1991), ch. 4 S.Heath, Psychopathia Sexualis: Stevensons strange case, Critical Quarterly, 28 (1986) E.Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle (1990), esp. Dr Jekylls Closet J.Walkowitz, Jack the Ripper and the Myth of Male Violence, Feminist Studies, vol. 8, no. 3 (Fall 1982) J.Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (1992), esp. ch. 2 & 7. E.Wilson, The Sphinx and the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder and Women (1991), chs 1&3

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Weeks 5 Homosexuality in the dock Context: Focus: Video: Essay: Homosexuality and the law The Boulton and Park case (1870); Cleveland St Scandal (1889/90); and the trials of Oscar Wilde (1895) The Trials of Oscar Wilde (dir. Ken Hughes, 1960) The Trial of Oscar Wilde represents an important turning point in the history of Victorian culture and sexuality. The importance of Wildes trials and imprisonment have been blown entirely out of proportion. Discuss.

Primary Sources Core The Lives of Boulton and Park: (1871) Hansard parliamentary debates (1890) Illustrated Police News (Jan. 25th 1890) Letter from G.B.Shaw re: the Cleveland St scandal (1889) Extracts from Wildes testimony in the second trial Press coverage of the Wilde trials in J.Goodman, The Oscar Wilde File (1988) Additional The Criminal Law Amendment Act (see course pack week 3) Press coverage, check: Boulton and Park 10 22nd May 1870; Cleveland St 15th 25th January 1890, 29th - 31st Feb. 1890, 12 16th March 1890; Wilde 3rd April 26th May 1895. Secondary Sources N.Bartlett, Who Was That Man: A Present for Mr Oscar Wilde (1988) (deals with all three scandals) E.Cohen, Talk on the Wilde Side (1993), esp. ch. 1 - 3 W.Cohen, Sex Scandal: The Private Parts of Victorian Fiction (1993), ch. on Boulton and Park I.Crozier, The Medical Construction of Homosexuality and its Relation to the Law in Nineteenth-Century England, Medical History, 45, 2001, pp.61 - 82 R. Davenport-Hines, Sex, Death and Punishment: Attitudes to Sex and Sexuality in Britain since the Renaissance (1990), ch. Dance as they Desire. R.Ellman, Oscar Wilde (1987), esp. chapters 16 20. M.S.Foldy, The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Deviance, Morality and Late-Victorian Society (1997) Hyde, The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1973) Hyde, The Cleveland Street Scandal (1976) M.Kaplan, Whos Afraid of John Saul? Urban Culture and the Politics of Desire in Late Victorian London in Gay and Lesbian Quarterly, 5:3 (1999) F.B.Smith, Laboucheres Amendment to the Criminal Law Amendment Act, Historical Studies, vol.17 (Oct. 1976), pp.165 - 173 J.Weeks, Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain, form the Nineteenth Century to the Present (1977), esp. part 1 Weeks, Inverts, perverts and Mary-Annes: male prostitution and the regulation of homosexuality in England in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in Against Nature: Essays on History, Sexuality and Identity (1991) Weeks, Sex Politics and Society, ch. 6

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Week 6 Reading week Essay due Monday 5th November Week 7 Homosexuality: Other voices Context: Focus: Essay: Identities and communities E.M.Forster, Maurice (1914); J.A..Symonds, A Problem in Modern Ethics; (1891) E.Carpenter, Loves Coming of Age (1913) How far can literature be used as an indicator of the sexual attitudes, fears and fantasies of a particular period? Discuss with reference to any of the novels examined on the course.

Primary Sources Core E.M.Forster, Maurice (1914) Extracts from the diary of George Ives E.Carpenter, Loves Coming of Age (1913) J.A.Symonds A Problem in Modern Ethics (1891) in B.Reade, Sexual Heretics (1970) Additional L.Bland & L.Doan, Sexology in Culture (1998), section II E.Carpenter, My Days and Dreams (1921) P.Higgins, A Queer Reader (1995), esp. material from the period B.Reade, Sexual Heretics: An Anthology (1970) O.Wilde, De Profundis Secondary Sources J.Bristow, Symonds History, Elliss Heredity, in Bland/Doan eds, Sexology in Culture (1998) P.Furbank, E.M.Forster: A Life (1977), esp., vol I, ch.14 P.Grosskurth, J.A.Symonds: A Biography (1964) S.Rowbotham and J.Weeks, Socialism and the New Life: The Personal and Sexual Politics of Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis (1977) J.Weeks, Coming Out (1977), parts 1 & 2 Week 8 The Fin de Siecle Context: Focus: Essay: Fears and Fantasies of the Fin de Sicle The new woman, the New Hedonism controversy and Bram Stokers, Dracula (1899) Is the designation fin de siecle anything more than an overblown phrase?

Primary Sources Essential: Bram Stoker, Dracula (1898) C.Morgan Dockrell, Is the New Woman a Myth? (1896) and extracts from Grant Allen, The Woman Who Did (1895) in J.Gardiner, ed., The New Woman (1993)

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The New Hedonism debate in the Fortnightly Review, Humanitarian and Review of Reviews (1894) Extracts from C.Lombroso, Man of Genius (1891), M.Nordau, Degeneration (1895) and G.Le Bon, The Crowd (1896)

Additional Punch (check out editions in mid-1890s editions in the library) Arnold White, Efficiency and Empire (1901) Extracts from Max Nordau, Degeneration (1895) and Gustav le Bon, The Crowd (1896) Elaine Showalter, ed., Daughters of Decadence: Women Writers of the Fin de Sicle Secondary Sources K.Beckson, London in the 1890s: A Cultural History (1992) Sue-Ellen Case, Tracking the Vampire, in Differences, 3 (1991) Christopher Craft, Kiss me With those Red Lips: Gender and inversion in Bram Stokers Dracula, E.Showalter, ed., Speaking of Gender (1989) L.Dowling, The Decadent and the New Woman in the 1890s, Nineteenth Century Fiction, 33, 1978 - 79 D.Glover, Bram Stoker and the Crisis of the Liberal Subject, New Literary History, 23, 1992 H. Jackson, The 1890s (1913) S.Ledger & S.McCracken, Cultural Politics at the Fin de Sicle (1995), esp. chs 1, 3, 5, 7 & 10 D.Pick, The degenerating Genius of the Fin de Siecle, History Today, vol.42, April 1992, pp. 17 - 22 Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Sicle (1992), esp. intro Week 9 Michel Foucault and the historiography of sex and sexuality Context: Focus: Essay: Reading Histories of sex Michel Focuault, The History of Sexuality, vol. I It is no longer tenable to argue that the Victorian period was the great age of sexual repression. Discuss. M.Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. I (1976) G.Gutting, The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (1994) S.Heath, The Sexual Fix (1982) C.Jones and R.Porter, Reassessing Foucault: Power, Medicine and the Body (1994), ch. 1,7 & 8 R.Porter and L.Hall, The Facts of Life (1995), intro J.Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society (1981), esp. ch.1 Weeks, Foucault for Historians, History Workshop Journal, 14 (1982) Weeks, The Uses and Abuses of Michel Foucault in Against Nature:: Essays on History, Sexuality and Identity (1991)

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Week 10 Context: Focus: Essay:

Masturbation and social purity The campaign for social purity Selected extracts (1857 1908) Examine Foucaults arguments in the History of Sexuality, vol. I, in relation either to sexology or the campaign to curb masturbation.

Primary sources Core A Warning Voice to Young Men (1857) The Lancet (1870) Clinical Lectures and Essays, Sir James Paget (1879) Private Lecture to Youths and Young Men (1883) Some Thoughts for Schoolboys (1884) Our Duty as Teachers (1886) The Secret Book for Women and Young Girls (c.1888) Training of the Young in Laws of Sex (1900) Scouting for Boys, Lieut-General Baden-Powell (1908) Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Havelock Ellis (1920) Marriage for the Millions (1875) The Blanco Book (1903) The Great Scourge and How to end It, Christabel Pankhurst (1913) Additional William Acton, The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs (1875) in S.Jeffries, The Sexuality Debates (1987) Secondary Sources Ben Baker-Benfield, The Spermatic Economy: A Nineteenth-Century View of Sexuality in ed. Michael Gordon, The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective (1973) E.Cohen, Taking Sex in Hand, in Talk on the Wilde Side (1993) L.Hall, Forbidden by God, Despised by Man: Masturbation, Medical Warning, Moral Panic, and Manhood in Great Britain, 1850 1950, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 2, 3, 1992 E.H.Hare, Masturbatory Insanity: The History of an Idea, Journal of Mental Science, 108 (1962), pp. 1 - 25 A.Hunt, The Great Masturbation Panic and Discourses of Moral Regulation in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Britain, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 8, 4, 1998 R.MacDonald, The Frightful Consequences of Onanism: Notes on the History of a Delusion, Journal of the History of Ideas, 28 (1967), pp.423 35 G.Mosse, Nationalism and Respectability: Normal and Abnormal Sexuality in the Nineteenth Century, Journal of Contemporary History, 17, 2, April 1982 A.Stoller, Domestic Subversions and Childrens Sexuality, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucaults History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things (1995) J.Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society (1981), ch. 5

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Week 11 Birth Control and Eugenics Context: Focus: Essay: Birth control and eugenics The Bradlaugh-Besant Trial (1877/8) In what ways does the debate about birth control reflect changing attitudes to sex, marriage, and female sexuality.

Primary Sources Core Charles Knowlton, The Fruits of Philosophy (1877) and Annie Besant, The Law of Population (1884) in S.Chandrasekhar, A Dirty, Filthy Book (1981) Confidential Talks with Husband and Wife (1900) Family Medical Guide and Husband and Wifes Handbook (c.1910) Additional Bland/Doan, eds, Sexology Uncensored, parts IV, V & VI Annie Besant, Marriage: As it was, as it is, and as it should be (1882) H.Havelock Ellis, The Problem of Race Regeneration (1911) and The task of Social Hygiene (1912) Marie Stopes, Married Love (1919), Wise Parenthood (1919), and Contraception (1923) Secondary Sources J.A. and O. Banks, The Bradlaugh-Besant Trial and the English Newspapers, Population Studies, vol.8, 1954 55 L. Bland, Banishing the Beast: English Feminism and Sexual Morality, 1885 1914 (1995) B. Brookes, Women and Reproduction, c.1860 1920, Jane Lewis, ed., Labour and Love, (1986) R.Manvell, The Trial of Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh (1976) A.McLaren, A History of Contraception (1992) McClaren, Birth Control in Nineteenth Century England: A Social and Intellectual History (1978) R. Porter and L. Hall, The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650 1950 (1995), esp. chapter 10. R.Soloway, Birth Control and the Population Question in England, 1877 1930 J.Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, (1981), ch.3, 7 & 10 Week 12 Sexual Science Context: Focus: Essay: The development of sexology Extracts from sexological writing; the Bedborough Trial (1898) Discuss the relationship between the social, political and scientific attitudes expressed in the work of H.Havelock Ellis, Richard von Krafft- Ebing, or Otto Weininger

Primary Sources Core L.Bland & L.Doan, Sexology Uncensored (1998), pts II, III, & VIII Clinical Notes and Cases, Journal of Mental Science (1885) Psychopathia Sexualis, BMJ (1893) Extracts from The Adult (1898) Extracts from H.Havelock Ellis, A Note on the Bedborough Trial (1898)

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Additional H.Havelock Ellis, Sexual Inversion (1897) (History Dept. library) Press coverage of the Bedborough trial (Oct. 31st 1898) Secondary Sources L.Bland & L.Doan, Sexology in Culture (1998), esp. intro and parts II & III Vern Bullough, Science in the Bedroom: A History of Sex Research (1994) L.Hall, Disinterested Enthusiasm for Sexual Misconduct: The British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, 1913 47, Journal of Contemporary History, 30 (1995) Gert Hekma, A History of Sexology: Social and Historical Aspects of Sexuality, Jan Bremmer, From Sapho to De Sade (1989) F.Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend (1992) J.Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society (1981), ch. 8 CHRISTMAS BREAK SEMESTER 2 Week 1 Sexual radicalism Context: Focus: Essay: Sex and socialism Selected extracts Discuss the role of sex in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century radical thought

Primary Sources Core Extracts from: The Anarchist (1885), The Woman Question (1886), The Adult (1897/1898), The Freewoman (1911/1912) Stella Browne, The Sexual Variety and Variability Among Women (1915), in S.Rowbotham, ed., A New World for Women: Stella Browne, socialist, feminist (1977) Additional The New Freewoman (university library) Edward Carpenter, Towards Democracy (1905) William Morris, News from Nowhere (1890) Secondary sources L.Bland, Banishing the Beast (1995), ch. 1 & 7 L.Hall, Disinterested Enthusiasm for Sexual Misconduct: the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, 1913 47, in The Journal of Contemporary History, vol.30, 1995 F.Mort, Dangerous Sexualities (1987), esp. pt 3, chs 10 14 L.Nead, Myths of Sexuality, ch.4 S.Poldervaart, Theories about sex and sexuality in Utopian socialism, Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 29, no.2/3 (1995), pp.41 - 67 J.Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight (1992), ch.5 J.Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society (1981), ch. 9 Weeks, Against Nature (1991), ch.10 Weeks, Coming Out (1977), chs 10, 11, & 12

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Week 2 Dissertations Discussion and presentations Week 3 Sex and the Great War Context: Focus: Essay: Sex and War Pemberton Billing and the Maude Allen Libel trial (1918) To what extent was the Pemberton Billing case inidcative of heightened fears about sex and sexuality during the Great War?

Primary Sources Lord Alfred Douglas, The Rossiad (1916) Material on the Maude Allen libel trial to follow Secondary Sources P. Barker, The Eye in the Door (1993) I.Bete-El, Men and soldiers: British conscripts, concepts of masculinity and the Great War, in ed. B.Melman, Borderlines: Genders and Identities in War and Peace J.Bourke, Dismembering the Male:: Mens Bodies, Britain and the Great War L. Bland, Trial by Sexology? Maude Allen, Salome and the Cult of the Clitoris case in eds Bland/Doan, Sexology in Culture (1998) C. Haste, Rules of Desire: Sex in Britain, World War One to the Present (1994) P. Hoare, Wildes Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy and the First World War (1997) S. Humphries, The Secret World of Sex: Forbidden Fruit The British Experience 1900 1950 (1988) P.Levine, Walking the streets in a way no decent woman should: women police in World War I, in Journal of Modern History, 66, March 1984 P.Summerfield, Women and war, ed. J.Purvis, Womens History: Britain 1850 1945 (1995) H. Lee, Virginia Woolf (1997), esp. chapters 13 19 Week 4 Lesbianism Context: Focus: Video: Essay: Lesbian histories and identities The trial of The Well of Loneliness (1928) Its Not Unusual (Channel 4 documentary part 1) To what extent was lesbianism conceptualised in terms of a mans soul in a womans body in the early twentieth century

Primary Sources Core Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1928) Stella Brown, Studies in Feminine Inversion (1923), in S.Jeffries, The Sexuality Debates (1987) Selected newspaper coverage of Halls novel and the trial (to follow)

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Additional S.Jeffries, The Sexuality Debates, (1987), esp. part IIIc Secondary Sources V. Brittain, Radclyffe Hall: A Case of Obscenity (1968) G.Chauncey, From Sexual Inversion to homosexuality: medicine and the changing conception of female deviance, Salmagundi, 58 59 (Fall 1982) S. Cline, Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John (1997) L.Doan, Fashioning Saphism (2001) L.Faderman, Surpassing the Love of Men, (1985), esp. parts 2 and 3 L.Hall, I have never met the normal woman: Stella Brown and the politics of womanhood, Womans History Review, vol. 6, no. 2, 1997 S.Jeffries, Women and Sexuality, ed. J.Purvis, Womens History: Britain 1850 1945 (1995) B.Melman, Borderlines: Genders and Identities in War and Peace, 1870 1930 (1998), esp. part 2 E.Newton, The mythic manish lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman, in Duberman et al, Hidden from History (1991) J.Weeks, Coming Out (1977), esp. part 3 Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbians in History, 1840 1985, The Womens Press (1989), esp. By Their Friends We Shall Know Them J.Wheelwright, Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed as Men in the Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness (1989) Week 5 Course review Read Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928) and watch the film (Orlando, Sally Potter, 1992 available in the university library)

May 2002

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