Hannah Charnock, "Teenage intimacies: Young Women, Sex and Social Life in England, 1950-80" (Manchester UP, 2025)

Howard Chiang’s new book is a masterful study of the relationship between sexual knowledge and Chinese modernity. After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2018) guides readers through the history of eunuchs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the techniques of visualization that helped establish the conditions that produced sex as an object of empirical knowledge, the rise of sexology in the 1920s, the discourse of “sex change” in the press from the 1920s to the 1940s, and a famous case of the “first” Chinese transsexual in 1950s Taiwan. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of sexuality in China, and will be of special interest for readers who are interested in bringing Foucault-inspired analyses to the craft of history. Carla Nappi is the Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh. You can learn more about her and her work here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

17 Dec 20181h 10min

Lily Wong‘s Transpacific Attachments: Sex Work, Media Networks, and Affective Histories of Chineseness (Columbia University Press, 2018) traces the genealogy of the Chinese sex worker as a figure who manifests throughout the 20th century in moments of anti-Asian racism as well as moments of sexism and nationalism within Chinese communities. Yet for Wong, the tensions and visibility of this figure also allows alternative and alternating forms of solidarity rooted in stepping back from ideologies of nation, race and gender. The sex worker thus allows us to see Chineseness and other forms of collectivity as an affective product, an attachment that mobilizes our emotions and frames how we see others as well as ourselves. By charting representations of the Chinese sex worker through histories of Pacific Crossing, Cold War era ideologies, and contemporary globalization, Wong’s book shows the multiple ways that sex work and prostitution have unsettled forms of collectivity, while providing new spaces for dwelling. Christopher B. Patterson teaches at the University of British Columbia, Social Justice Institute. He is the author of Transitive Cultures: Anglophone Literature of the Transpacific and Stamped: an anti-travel novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Aug 201850min

The First World War is usually associated with Trench Warfare, industrial mobilization, and the Lost Generation. In her recent book, Sexual Treason in Germany during the First World War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), Lisa M. Todd reveals an obsession among elites, the state, and everyday people with sex in the midst of such disruptive warfare. She argues that the state, the churches, and even their neighbors viewed men and women who had sex outside of marriage as traitors to the nation. Critically exploring explosive debates among moral Christians, sex reformers, military figures, and politicians, this book demonstrates the profound ambiguities of the era. Balancing everyday stories with major legal changes and cultural discourse, Todd assesses sexual encounters on the western, eastern, and home fronts. She analyzes fraught issues such as sex work, POW labor, and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Combining dynamic individual stories from a rich archival base, this book is one that will appeal to many listeners. Michael E. O’Sullivan is Associate Professor of History at Marist College where he teaches courses about Modern Europe. He will publish Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918-1965 with University of Toronto Press in the fall of 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Juni 20181h 2min

In Profit and Passion: Transactional Sex in Colonial Mexico (University of California Press, 2018), Nicole Von Germeten explains the most important changes, in both ideas and practices, over three centuries of commercial sex in New Spain. By using literature and extensive archival records, the author explores the gradual criminalization of places and people involved in transactional sex from the 16th to early 19th centuries. By avoiding the anachronistic introduction of terminology, debates, and depictions of current debates in regards to sex work, this book shows the complexities of sexual exchanges in the way they were accepted, rejected, and contested at the time. This broad historical perspective allows the reader, for instance, to understand the origins and causes of the stigma that words like prostitute/prostitution acquired during the 18th century, paving the way for debates that would take place in the following centuries, not only in Mexico, but in other parts of the world. Profit and Passion is an important contribution not only to the history of sexuality but also to ongoing debates in regards to sex work. Pamela Fuentes is Assistant Professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department, Pace University, NYC campus.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Juni 20181h 2min

In Discriminating Sex: White Leisure and the Making of the American ‘Oriental’ (University of Illinois Press, 2018), Amy Sueyoshi argues that Americans did not always regard Chinese and Japanese in the U.S. as pan-ethnic “Orientals” in ways that are familiar to Asian Americans today. Rather, this conflation occurred against a backdrop of troubling stereotypes that enabled white Americans in turn-of-the-century San Francisco to explore changing ideas and practices of gender and sexuality. Sueyoshi uses a wide variety of sources including newspapers and magazines, morgue and court records, novels, plays, and oral history to reconstitute differing images of Chinese and Japanese American men and women, while at the same showing that their lives defied these misrepresentations. In this conversation, Sueyoshi shares insights from Discriminating Sex, and talks about her journey through academia and activism in pursuit of equity for queer Asian Americans both on and off the page. Ian Shin is C3-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the History Department at Bates College, where his teaching and research focus on the history of the U.S. in the world and Asian American history. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the politics of Chinese art collecting in the United States in the early 20th century. Ian welcomes listener questions and feedback at kshin@bates.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Juni 20181h 8min

In the recent past, anti-Muslim hate crimes and rhetoric have surged across America and Europe. Much of this public discourse revolves around questions of assimilation and where Muslim positions on sexuality and gender fit into national unity. In Sexagon: Muslims, France, and the Sexualization of National Culture (Fordham University Press, 2017), Mehammed Amadeus Mack, Assistant Professor of French Studies at Smith College, explores the politicization of Muslim minority sexuality in France in various cultural domains. Whether in literature, journalistic media, or activist endeavors the general portrayal of Muslims in these contexts is structured around unmodern attitudes towards sexuality. It is assumed that African and Arab minorities in France are regressive, patriarchal, and intolerant of homosexuality. Through his study of a number of cultural arenas of representation Mack demonstrates that sexual identities are often unclear, hidden, or in flux. In our conversation we discussed sexuality and French identity, aspects of non-gendered virility, homosexual clandestinity and the possibility of queer identities, girl gangs, psychoanalysis and Islam, the literary trope of the Arab Boy, cinematic representations of ethnic sexualities, the management and surveillance of sexuality, the role of pornography in the sexualization of Muslims, gay-interest publications, the continued sexual demonization of Muslims in the current social climate in France and Europe, and the literary production of Eurabia. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Mars 20181h 19min

Professor George Paul Meiu‘s debut anthropological book, Ethno-erotic Economies: Sexuality, Money, and Belonging in Kenya (University of Chicago Press, 2017), dives into the commodification of culture and sex on the beachfronts of coastal Kenya, as well as the ramifications and shifting economic power dynamics in rural Samburu villages that result from this new economy. Utilizing over a decade of community engagement and research, Meiu expertly engages in intense anthropological study without exploitation and judgment. Rather he succeeds in humanizing his subjects as he explores the creation and development of a new economy, that of engaging with white, largely Western European women, in romantic relationships in exchange for money, goods and, eventually, higher economic and social status in their home rural communities. But with this new economy comes challenges to traditional social structures, as sexuality and wealth intersect with traditional land tenure and power. Meiu, with his deep understanding of the Samburu people, rituals and culture, explores how power dynamics change, and how new money is challenged and reconciled. This book is highly readable, without skimping on academic literature and theoretical context, resulting in a book that will engage everyone from first year anthropology students through seasoned academics. Erin Freas-Smith, Ph.D can be reached at efreassmith@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Mars 201853min

Marie Griffith‘s new book Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics (Basic Books, 2017) offers a portrait of how religious views regarding sexuality became entangled with multiple political debates including those over feminism, gay rights, sex education and in charges of communism and secular humanism. Beginning with the controversies over birth control in the 1920s, she takes us through the twentieth century to the most recent battles over same-sex marriage dividing American Christians both politically and religiously. Moral Combat features pivotal figures including, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, the fundamentalist radio preacher Billy James Hargis and the first gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson. She demonstrates how pro and con positions were not always clearly defined and adherents could change sides in a matter of a decade, finding surprising allies. In the new millennium two distinct religious visions for society and human sexuality had taken root unraveling any hope of consensus. Marie Griffith is the John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor at Washington University in St. Louis where she directs the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. This episode of New Books in Gender Studies was produced in cooperation with the Society for U.S. Intellectual History. Lilian Calles Barger is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her current book project is entitled The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology, forthcoming in 2018 from Oxford University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Feb 201857min