Homosexuality in French History and Culture »

Deconstruct changing representations of homosexuality with this important new work of cultural criticism!

Homosexuality in French History and Culture explores episodes, patterns, and images of same-sex attraction in France from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, from the essays of Michel de Montaigne to pride parades in contemporary Paris. This groundbreaking book documents the ways homosexuality has been named, experienced, regulated, understood, and imagined.

During these centuries, homosexuality has been stigmatized as a sin, crime, or disease, and denounced as a threat to social order and national identity. Yet the rhetoric of condemnation has always co-existed with the reality of toleration. This groundbreaking collection analyzes the ways in which persecutions, as well as differences within minority sexual subcultures, have highlighted stereotypes and anxieties about class and age differences, gendered roles, and separatism.

Homosexuality in French History and Culture offers historical and literary studies based on a wide variety of sources, including:

• novels, plays, and poetry
  
• gossip and satires
  
• police reports
  
• medical texts
  
• travel literature
  
• newspapers and periodicals
  
• memoirs

  Homosexuality in French History and Culture combines fresh, creative re-interpretation of familiar texts with exciting new explorations of neglected historical episodes and cultures. It is a landmark of meticulous scholarship and rigorous theoretical analysis, and a vital resource for scholars of queer theory, French history and culture, and literary criticism.

Booknews

Contributors in French history and literature and in gay and lesbian studies explore episodes, patterns, and images of same-sex attraction in France from the 16th to the 21st century. They analyze the way in which persecutions, as well as differences within minority sexual subcultures, have highlighted stereotypes about class and age differences, gendered roles, and separatism. Merrick teaches history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Sibalis teaches modern European and French history at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. The book is co-published simultaneously as , vol. 41, nos. 3/4, 2001. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)