An American obsession : science, medicine and homosexuality in modern society / Jennifer Terry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Terry, Jennifer, 1958-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Homosexuality--United States--History.

Homosexuality.

Homosexuality--History.

Sexology--United States--History.

Sexology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (553 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Drawing on original research from medical texts, psychiatric case histories, pioneering statistical surveys, first-person accounts, legal cases, sensationalist journalism, and legislative debates, Jennifer Terry has written a nuanced and textured history of how the century-old obsession with homosexuality is deeply tied to changing American anxieties about social and sexual order in the modern age. Terry's overarching argument is compelling: that homosexuality served as a marker of the "abnormal" against which malleable, tenuous, and often contradictory concepts of the "normal" were defined. One of the few histories to take into consideration homosexuality in both women and men, Terry's work also stands out in its refusal to erase the agency of people classified as abnormal. She documents the myriad ways that gays, lesbians, and other sexual minorities have coauthored, resisted, and transformed the most powerful and authoritative modern truths about sex. Proposing this history as a "useable past," An American Obsession is an indispensable contribution to the study of American cultural history.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. MODERNITY AND THE VEXING PRESENCE OF HOMOSEXUALS

2. MEDICALIZING HOMOSEXUALITY

3. THE UNITED STATES OF PERVERSION

4. PROGRESSIVE SCIENCE IN SEARCH OF SEXUAL NORMALITY

5. FLUID SEXES

6. THE COMMITTEE FOR THE STUDY OF SEX VARIANTS

7. SEX VARIANT SUBJECTS

8. POLICING HOMOSEXUALITY

9. DISEASE OR WAY OF LIFE?

10. PARENTS STRANGERS, A D OTHER DANGERS

11. FEAR OF A WORLD CONSPIRACY

12. DISCERNING ALLIES AND ENEMIES

EPILOGUE

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613058621

9781283058629

1283058626

9780226793689

0226793680

OCLC:

701704594