HIST 344(S) The History of Sexuality in America

This course explores the social and cultural history of sexuality in America from the colonial period through the present, concentrating in particular on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It provides an introduction both to topics of particular importance to the history of sexuality and to the various methods used by historians studying the subject. Through the semester, we will explore the different meanings American men and women have attached to sexuality, and the changing political, economic, social, and ideological contexts in which those constructions have taken place. Topics include Victorian sexual ideology and behavior, sexual thought in nineteenth-century utopian communities, the birth control movement, the anti-prostitution crusades of the Progressive era, the creation of a homosexual identity and consciousness, the shifting boundary between "normality" and "deviance," the "sexual revolutions" of the 1910s-20s and the 1960s, and the AIDS epidemic. Evaluation will be based on class participation, two short interpretive essays, and a final exam. Enrollment limited to 40. Group A

Hour:  KUNZEL