Author: R. Vanita
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137054808
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Same-Sex Love in India presents a stunning array of writings on same-sex love from over 2000 years of Indian literature. Translated from more than a dozen languages and drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and modern fictional traditions, these writings testify to the presence of same-sex love in various forms since ancient times, without overt persecution. This collection defies both stereotypes of Indian culture and Foucault's definition of homosexuality as a nineteenth-century invention, uncovering instead complex discourses of Indian homosexuality, rich metaphorical traditions to represent it, and the use of names and terms as early as medieval times to distinguish same-sex from cross-sex love. An eminent group of scholars have translated these writings for the first time or have re-translated well-known texts to correctly make evident previously underplayed homoerotic content. Selections range from religious books, legal and erotic treatises, story cycles, medieval histories and biographies, modern novels, short stories, letters, memoirs, plays and poems. From the Rigveda to Vikram Seth, this anthology will become a staple in courses on gender and queer studies, Asian studies, and world literature.
Same-Sex Love in India
Author: R. Vanita
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137054808
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Same-Sex Love in India presents a stunning array of writings on same-sex love from over 2000 years of Indian literature. Translated from more than a dozen languages and drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and modern fictional traditions, these writings testify to the presence of same-sex love in various forms since ancient times, without overt persecution. This collection defies both stereotypes of Indian culture and Foucault's definition of homosexuality as a nineteenth-century invention, uncovering instead complex discourses of Indian homosexuality, rich metaphorical traditions to represent it, and the use of names and terms as early as medieval times to distinguish same-sex from cross-sex love. An eminent group of scholars have translated these writings for the first time or have re-translated well-known texts to correctly make evident previously underplayed homoerotic content. Selections range from religious books, legal and erotic treatises, story cycles, medieval histories and biographies, modern novels, short stories, letters, memoirs, plays and poems. From the Rigveda to Vikram Seth, this anthology will become a staple in courses on gender and queer studies, Asian studies, and world literature.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137054808
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Same-Sex Love in India presents a stunning array of writings on same-sex love from over 2000 years of Indian literature. Translated from more than a dozen languages and drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and modern fictional traditions, these writings testify to the presence of same-sex love in various forms since ancient times, without overt persecution. This collection defies both stereotypes of Indian culture and Foucault's definition of homosexuality as a nineteenth-century invention, uncovering instead complex discourses of Indian homosexuality, rich metaphorical traditions to represent it, and the use of names and terms as early as medieval times to distinguish same-sex from cross-sex love. An eminent group of scholars have translated these writings for the first time or have re-translated well-known texts to correctly make evident previously underplayed homoerotic content. Selections range from religious books, legal and erotic treatises, story cycles, medieval histories and biographies, modern novels, short stories, letters, memoirs, plays and poems. From the Rigveda to Vikram Seth, this anthology will become a staple in courses on gender and queer studies, Asian studies, and world literature.
Queering India
Author: Ruth Vanita
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135305889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Queering India is the first book to provide an understanding of same-sex love and eroticism in Indian culture and society. The essays focus on pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial gay and lesbian life in India to provide a comprehensive look at a much neglected topic. The topics are wide-ranging, considering film, literature, popular culture, historical and religious texts, law and other aspects of life in India. Specifically, the essays cover such issues as Deepa Mehta's recent and controversial film, Fire, which focused on lesbian relationships in India; the Indian penal code which outlaws homosexual acts; a case of same-sex love and murder in colonial India; homophobic fiction and homoerotic advertising in current day India; and lesbian subtext in Hindu scripture. All of the essays are original to the collection. Queering India promises to change the way we understand India as well as gay and lesbian life and sexuality around the world.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135305889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Queering India is the first book to provide an understanding of same-sex love and eroticism in Indian culture and society. The essays focus on pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial gay and lesbian life in India to provide a comprehensive look at a much neglected topic. The topics are wide-ranging, considering film, literature, popular culture, historical and religious texts, law and other aspects of life in India. Specifically, the essays cover such issues as Deepa Mehta's recent and controversial film, Fire, which focused on lesbian relationships in India; the Indian penal code which outlaws homosexual acts; a case of same-sex love and murder in colonial India; homophobic fiction and homoerotic advertising in current day India; and lesbian subtext in Hindu scripture. All of the essays are original to the collection. Queering India promises to change the way we understand India as well as gay and lesbian life and sexuality around the world.
Love’s Rite
Author: R. Vanita
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403981604
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
This is the first book to examine the same-sex weddings and same-sex couple suicides reported in India over the last two decades. Ruth Vanita examines these cases in the context of a wide variety of same-sex unions, from Fourteenth-century narratives about co-wives who miraculously produce a child together, to Nineteenth-century depictions of ritualized unions between women, to marriages between gay men and lesbians arranged over the internet. Examining the changing legal, literary, religious and social Indian and Euro-American traditions within which same-sex unions are embedded, she brings a fresh perspective to the gay marriage debate, suggesting that same-sex marriage dwells not at the margins but at the heart of culture. Love's Rites by Ruth Vanita is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403981604
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
This is the first book to examine the same-sex weddings and same-sex couple suicides reported in India over the last two decades. Ruth Vanita examines these cases in the context of a wide variety of same-sex unions, from Fourteenth-century narratives about co-wives who miraculously produce a child together, to Nineteenth-century depictions of ritualized unions between women, to marriages between gay men and lesbians arranged over the internet. Examining the changing legal, literary, religious and social Indian and Euro-American traditions within which same-sex unions are embedded, she brings a fresh perspective to the gay marriage debate, suggesting that same-sex marriage dwells not at the margins but at the heart of culture. Love's Rites by Ruth Vanita is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.
Same-Sex Love in India
Author: Ruth Vanita
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 9354920675
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 561
Book Description
In 2009, the Delhi High Court's historic judgment overturning Section 377 as violative of the Indian Constitution referred to Same-Sex Love in India. So did the 2018 Supreme Court decision which upheld that judgment. All the petitions against this anti-sodomy law have cited this landmark book to prove that homosexuality is not a Western import. Same-Sex Love in India is the book that brought to light the long, incontestable history of same-sex love and desire in the Indian subcontinent. Covering over 2000 years, from the Mahabharata to the late twentieth century, the book contains excerpts from stories, poems, letters, biographies and histories in fifteen languages. The editors' introductions to each period and text trace the changing depictions of and debates around same-sex relations, illuminating their social, political and literary contexts. These essays have been called 'outstanding works of scholarship'. Including writings that range from romantic to analytical, playful to thoughtful, this classic work will help you see Indian culture and society with new eyes.
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 9354920675
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 561
Book Description
In 2009, the Delhi High Court's historic judgment overturning Section 377 as violative of the Indian Constitution referred to Same-Sex Love in India. So did the 2018 Supreme Court decision which upheld that judgment. All the petitions against this anti-sodomy law have cited this landmark book to prove that homosexuality is not a Western import. Same-Sex Love in India is the book that brought to light the long, incontestable history of same-sex love and desire in the Indian subcontinent. Covering over 2000 years, from the Mahabharata to the late twentieth century, the book contains excerpts from stories, poems, letters, biographies and histories in fifteen languages. The editors' introductions to each period and text trace the changing depictions of and debates around same-sex relations, illuminating their social, political and literary contexts. These essays have been called 'outstanding works of scholarship'. Including writings that range from romantic to analytical, playful to thoughtful, this classic work will help you see Indian culture and society with new eyes.
Love in a Different Climate
Author: Jeremy Seabrook
Publisher: Verso
ISBN: 9781859848371
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
In this carefully researched and finely written work, Jeremy Seabrook deals with subjects rarely discussed in Western narratives about South Asia. Going beyond a straightforward contextualisation of the gatoei (lady-boys) in Thailand and the hijara (eunuchs) of India, he unravels the less familiar and more complex territory of homosexual and homoerotic encounters in general, and asks how valid Western models of sexual identity are in the South Asian context, and how effective they might be in dealing with global issues of sexual health, HIV awareness and gender politics. Much of the book is based on interviews which reveal the extent of the complexity at play: wives who traditionally vacate the marital bed to accommodate their husbands' friends; kotis—"passive" male sex partners of men—many of whom will be married but see their relations with the kotis as fulfilling their destinies as males; the fundamentalist politicians who curse the Western influence of "gay liberation" and continue to justify the punishment of life imprisonment for homosexuality; and the activist groups who are working towards a clearer and more helpful understanding of contemporary issues. The first work of its kind on India, Love in a Different Climate reveals how a traditional shrouding in mystery of sexual difference is slowly but surely giving way to a more open and essentially local celebration of that difference.
Publisher: Verso
ISBN: 9781859848371
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
In this carefully researched and finely written work, Jeremy Seabrook deals with subjects rarely discussed in Western narratives about South Asia. Going beyond a straightforward contextualisation of the gatoei (lady-boys) in Thailand and the hijara (eunuchs) of India, he unravels the less familiar and more complex territory of homosexual and homoerotic encounters in general, and asks how valid Western models of sexual identity are in the South Asian context, and how effective they might be in dealing with global issues of sexual health, HIV awareness and gender politics. Much of the book is based on interviews which reveal the extent of the complexity at play: wives who traditionally vacate the marital bed to accommodate their husbands' friends; kotis—"passive" male sex partners of men—many of whom will be married but see their relations with the kotis as fulfilling their destinies as males; the fundamentalist politicians who curse the Western influence of "gay liberation" and continue to justify the punishment of life imprisonment for homosexuality; and the activist groups who are working towards a clearer and more helpful understanding of contemporary issues. The first work of its kind on India, Love in a Different Climate reveals how a traditional shrouding in mystery of sexual difference is slowly but surely giving way to a more open and essentially local celebration of that difference.
Same-Sex Love in India
Author: NA NA
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349621838
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Lambda literary award finalist, Same-Sex Love in India presents a stunning array of writings on same-sex love from over 2000 years of Indian literature. Translated from more than a dozen languages and drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and modern fictional traditions, these writings testify to the presence of same-sex love in various forms since ancient times, without overt persecution. This collection defies both stereotypes of Indian culture and Foucault's definition of homosexuality as a 19th-century invention, uncovering instead complex discourses of Indian homosexuality, rich metaphorical traditions to represent it, and the use of names and terms as early as medieval times to distinguish same-sex from cross-sex love. An eminent group of scholars have translated these writings for the first time or have re-translated well-known texts to correctly make evident previously underplayed homoerotic content. Selections range from religious books, legal and erotic treatises, story cycles, medieval histories and biographies, modern novels, short stories, letters, memoirs, plays and poems. From the Rigveda to Vikram Seth, this anthology will become a staple in courses on gender and queer studies, Asian studies, and world literature.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349621838
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Lambda literary award finalist, Same-Sex Love in India presents a stunning array of writings on same-sex love from over 2000 years of Indian literature. Translated from more than a dozen languages and drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and modern fictional traditions, these writings testify to the presence of same-sex love in various forms since ancient times, without overt persecution. This collection defies both stereotypes of Indian culture and Foucault's definition of homosexuality as a 19th-century invention, uncovering instead complex discourses of Indian homosexuality, rich metaphorical traditions to represent it, and the use of names and terms as early as medieval times to distinguish same-sex from cross-sex love. An eminent group of scholars have translated these writings for the first time or have re-translated well-known texts to correctly make evident previously underplayed homoerotic content. Selections range from religious books, legal and erotic treatises, story cycles, medieval histories and biographies, modern novels, short stories, letters, memoirs, plays and poems. From the Rigveda to Vikram Seth, this anthology will become a staple in courses on gender and queer studies, Asian studies, and world literature.
Chocolate and Other Writings on Male Homoeroticism
Author: Pandey Bechan Sharma
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822392186
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
This volume makes available for the first time in English the work of a significant Indian nationalist author, Pandey Bechan Sharma, better known in India as “Ugra,” meaning “extreme.” His book Chocolate, a 1927 collection of eight stories, was the first work of Hindi fiction to focus on male same-sex relations, and its publication sparked India’s first public debates about homosexuality. Many prominent figures, including Gandhi, weighed in on the debates, which lasted into the 1950s. This edition, translated and with an introduction by Ruth Vanita, includes the full text of Chocolate along with an excerpt from Ugra’s novel Letters of Some Beautiful Ones (also published in 1927). In her introduction, Vanita situates Ugra and his writings in relation to Indian nationalist struggles and Hindi literary movements and feuds, and she analyzes the controversies that surrounded Chocolate. Those outraged by its titillating portrayal of homosexuality labeled the collection obscene. On the other side, although no one explicitly defended homosexuality in public, some justified Ugra’s work by arguing that it was the artist’s job to educate through provocation. The stories depict male homoeroticism in quotidian situations: a man brings a lover to his disapproving friend’s house; a good-looking young man becomes the object of desire at his school. The love never ends well, but the depictions are not always unsympathetic. Although Ugra claimed that the stories were aimed at suppressing homosexuality by exposing it, Vanita highlights the ambivalence of his characterizations. Cosmopolitan, educated, and hedonistic, the Hindu and Muslim men he portrayed quote Hindi and Urdu poetry to express their love, and they justify same-sex desire by drawing on literature, philosophy, and world history. Vanita’s introduction includes anecdotal evidence that Chocolate was enthusiastically received by India’s homosexual communities.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822392186
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
This volume makes available for the first time in English the work of a significant Indian nationalist author, Pandey Bechan Sharma, better known in India as “Ugra,” meaning “extreme.” His book Chocolate, a 1927 collection of eight stories, was the first work of Hindi fiction to focus on male same-sex relations, and its publication sparked India’s first public debates about homosexuality. Many prominent figures, including Gandhi, weighed in on the debates, which lasted into the 1950s. This edition, translated and with an introduction by Ruth Vanita, includes the full text of Chocolate along with an excerpt from Ugra’s novel Letters of Some Beautiful Ones (also published in 1927). In her introduction, Vanita situates Ugra and his writings in relation to Indian nationalist struggles and Hindi literary movements and feuds, and she analyzes the controversies that surrounded Chocolate. Those outraged by its titillating portrayal of homosexuality labeled the collection obscene. On the other side, although no one explicitly defended homosexuality in public, some justified Ugra’s work by arguing that it was the artist’s job to educate through provocation. The stories depict male homoeroticism in quotidian situations: a man brings a lover to his disapproving friend’s house; a good-looking young man becomes the object of desire at his school. The love never ends well, but the depictions are not always unsympathetic. Although Ugra claimed that the stories were aimed at suppressing homosexuality by exposing it, Vanita highlights the ambivalence of his characterizations. Cosmopolitan, educated, and hedonistic, the Hindu and Muslim men he portrayed quote Hindi and Urdu poetry to express their love, and they justify same-sex desire by drawing on literature, philosophy, and world history. Vanita’s introduction includes anecdotal evidence that Chocolate was enthusiastically received by India’s homosexual communities.
An Indefinite Sentence
Author: Siddharth Dube
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 150115849X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Memoir/Biography A revelatory memoir about sex, oppression, and the universal struggle for justice. From his time as a child in 1960s India, Siddharth Dube knew that he was different. Reckoning with his femininity and sexuality—and his intellect—would send him on a lifelong journey of discovery: from Harvard classrooms to unsafe cruising sites; from ivory-tower think-tanks to shantytowns; from halls of power at the UN and World Bank to jail cells where sexual outcasts are brutalized. Coming of age in the earliest days of AIDS, Dube was at the frontlines when that disease made rights for gay men and for sex workers a matter of basic survival, pushing to decriminalize same-sex relations and sex work in India, both similarly outlawed under laws dating back to British colonial rule. He became a trenchant critic of the United States’ imposition of its cruel anti-prostitution policies on developing countries—an effort legitimized by leading American feminists and would-be do-gooders—warning that this was a 21st century replay of the moralistic Victorian-era campaigns that had spawned endless persecution of countless women, men, and trans individuals the world over. Profound, ferocious, and luminously written, An Indefinite Sentence is both a personal and political journey, weaving Dube’s own quest for love and self-respect with unforgettable portrayals of the struggles of some of the world’s most oppressed people, those reviled and cast out for their sexuality. Informed by a lifetime of scholarship and introspection, it is essential reading on the global debates over sexuality, gender expression, and of securing human rights and social justice in a world distorted by inequality and right-wing ascendancy.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 150115849X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Memoir/Biography A revelatory memoir about sex, oppression, and the universal struggle for justice. From his time as a child in 1960s India, Siddharth Dube knew that he was different. Reckoning with his femininity and sexuality—and his intellect—would send him on a lifelong journey of discovery: from Harvard classrooms to unsafe cruising sites; from ivory-tower think-tanks to shantytowns; from halls of power at the UN and World Bank to jail cells where sexual outcasts are brutalized. Coming of age in the earliest days of AIDS, Dube was at the frontlines when that disease made rights for gay men and for sex workers a matter of basic survival, pushing to decriminalize same-sex relations and sex work in India, both similarly outlawed under laws dating back to British colonial rule. He became a trenchant critic of the United States’ imposition of its cruel anti-prostitution policies on developing countries—an effort legitimized by leading American feminists and would-be do-gooders—warning that this was a 21st century replay of the moralistic Victorian-era campaigns that had spawned endless persecution of countless women, men, and trans individuals the world over. Profound, ferocious, and luminously written, An Indefinite Sentence is both a personal and political journey, weaving Dube’s own quest for love and self-respect with unforgettable portrayals of the struggles of some of the world’s most oppressed people, those reviled and cast out for their sexuality. Informed by a lifetime of scholarship and introspection, it is essential reading on the global debates over sexuality, gender expression, and of securing human rights and social justice in a world distorted by inequality and right-wing ascendancy.
Great Soul
Author: Joseph Lelyveld
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307389952
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
A highly original, stirring book on Mahatma Gandhi that deepens our sense of his achievements and disappointments—his success in seizing India’s imagination and shaping its independence struggle as a mass movement, his recognition late in life that few of his followers paid more than lip service to his ambitious goals of social justice for the country’s minorities, outcasts, and rural poor. “A revelation. . . . Lelyveld has restored human depth to the Mahatma.”—Hari Kunzru, The New York Times Pulitzer Prize–winner Joseph Lelyveld shows in vivid, unmatched detail how Gandhi’s sense of mission, social values, and philosophy of nonviolent resistance were shaped on another subcontinent—during two decades in South Africa—and then tested by an India that quickly learned to revere him as a Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” while following him only a small part of the way to the social transformation he envisioned. The man himself emerges as one of history’s most remarkable self-creations, a prosperous lawyer who became an ascetic in a loincloth wholly dedicated to political and social action. Lelyveld leads us step-by-step through the heroic—and tragic—last months of this selfless leader’s long campaign when his nonviolent efforts culminated in the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan, and a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing that ended only with his own assassination. India and its politicians were ready to place Gandhi on a pedestal as “Father of the Nation” but were less inclined to embrace his teachings. Muslim support, crucial in his rise to leadership, soon waned, and the oppressed untouchables—for whom Gandhi spoke to Hindus as a whole—produced their own leaders. Here is a vital, brilliant reconsideration of Gandhi’s extraordinary struggles on two continents, of his fierce but, finally, unfulfilled hopes, and of his ever-evolving legacy, which more than six decades after his death still ensures his place as India’s social conscience—and not just India’s.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307389952
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
A highly original, stirring book on Mahatma Gandhi that deepens our sense of his achievements and disappointments—his success in seizing India’s imagination and shaping its independence struggle as a mass movement, his recognition late in life that few of his followers paid more than lip service to his ambitious goals of social justice for the country’s minorities, outcasts, and rural poor. “A revelation. . . . Lelyveld has restored human depth to the Mahatma.”—Hari Kunzru, The New York Times Pulitzer Prize–winner Joseph Lelyveld shows in vivid, unmatched detail how Gandhi’s sense of mission, social values, and philosophy of nonviolent resistance were shaped on another subcontinent—during two decades in South Africa—and then tested by an India that quickly learned to revere him as a Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” while following him only a small part of the way to the social transformation he envisioned. The man himself emerges as one of history’s most remarkable self-creations, a prosperous lawyer who became an ascetic in a loincloth wholly dedicated to political and social action. Lelyveld leads us step-by-step through the heroic—and tragic—last months of this selfless leader’s long campaign when his nonviolent efforts culminated in the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan, and a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing that ended only with his own assassination. India and its politicians were ready to place Gandhi on a pedestal as “Father of the Nation” but were less inclined to embrace his teachings. Muslim support, crucial in his rise to leadership, soon waned, and the oppressed untouchables—for whom Gandhi spoke to Hindus as a whole—produced their own leaders. Here is a vital, brilliant reconsideration of Gandhi’s extraordinary struggles on two continents, of his fierce but, finally, unfulfilled hopes, and of his ever-evolving legacy, which more than six decades after his death still ensures his place as India’s social conscience—and not just India’s.
Homosexuality and Civilization
Author: Louis Crompton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674030060
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 652
Book Description
How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan. Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love in history, literature, and art, making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World. Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of sodomites in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great. Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece. Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674030060
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 652
Book Description
How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan. Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love in history, literature, and art, making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World. Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of sodomites in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great. Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece. Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.