The Sciences of Homosexuality in Early Modern Europe

Written by leading international contributors, this collection of essays explores the representations and suppressions associated with 'pre-homosexual' sex research from around 1450 to 1750. This survey challenges the view that the scientific basis of same-sex attraction is a modern invention and il [...]
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Written by leading international contributors, this collection of essays explores the representations and suppressions associated with 'pre-homosexual' sex research from around 1450 to 1750. This survey challenges the view that the scientific basis of same-sex attraction is a modern invention and illustrates how many of the ideas about homosexual attraction predated the enlightenment by appealing to anatomy, astronomy, medicine and physiognomy in their formative development between the Middle Ages and the European Enlightenment. This original work poses many of the same questions that are current today about the nature of homosexual activity and reveals how study of the early modern period and its sciences is fundamental to understanding the conceptual development of contemporary sexuality.