Ebook533 pages13 hours
An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
About this ebook
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.
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.
Related to An American Obsession
Related ebooks
Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mad Among Us Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Framing the moron: The social construction of feeble-mindedness in the American eugenic era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMixing Races: From Scientific Racism to Modern Evolutionary Ideas Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Racism: A Beginner's Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExtraordinary Conditions: Culture and Experience in Mental Illness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prison Power: How Prison Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChoice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bricks before Brown: The Chinese American, Native American, and Mexican Americans' Struggle for Educational Equality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Black Power Movement and American Social Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cigarette: A Political History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America, with a New Preface Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHealing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into—and Out of—Violent Extremism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Sell Drugs: The Alchemy of US Empire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sinking Middle Class: A Political History of Debt, Misery, and the Drift to the Right Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Engineering of Racism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDisobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies On Law and Order Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow: an organizing guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHuman Wrongs: British Social Policy and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sacrifice Zone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStill Invisible?: Examining America's Black Male Crisis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Psychology of Gender and Health: Conceptual and Applied Global Concerns Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPolitical Partisanship, Cyberbullying, & Suicidal Thoughts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
Men Explain Things to Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Close Encounters with Addiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slaves in the Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for An American Obsession
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
An American Obsession - Jennifer Terry
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1