HIST 1160

HIST 1160, History of Sexuality, explores sex and sexuality chronologically and thematically from the early modern period to the present day. Students will be introduced to sexuality as a topic of historical study and gain an understanding of how historical evidence challenges the idea that sexuality is driven by biology, fixed in nature, and unchanging. Students will explore how debates about sexuality are embedded in ideas about gender, class and race, and located within broader socio-political, religious, economic, medical, and cultural frameworks. Major themes include: sexuality, science, and the state; reproduction and contraception; heteronormativity, marriage, and the family; sexual violence and slavery; Indigenous sexualities and Indigenous-settler relations; the medicalization of sexuality; moral panics and the politics of protest; censorship, surveillance, and the criminalization of sexuality; capitalism and the commodification of sexuality; popular culture and desiring bodies; intersectionality and gay/lesbian/queer/trans identities; sexuality and transnational histories.