On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
Homosexuality and Civilization by
How have major civilisations 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. making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century BC branded male homosexuality as a capital offence 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. 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 Greek.
Call Number: HQ76.25 .C76 2003
The Rio de Janeiro Reader by
Spanning a period of over 450 years, The Rio de Janeiro Reader traces the history, culture, and politics of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, through the voices, images, and experiences of those who have made the city's history. It outlines Rio's transformation from a hardscrabble colonial outpost and strategic port into an economic, cultural, and entertainment capital of the modern world. The volume contains a wealth of primary sources, many of which appear here in English for the first time. A mix of government documents, lyrics, journalism, speeches, ephemera, poems, maps, engravings, photographs, and other sources capture everything from the fantastical impressions of the first European arrivals to the complaints about roving capoeira gangs, and from sobering eyewitness accounts of slavery's brutality to the glitz of Copacabana. The definitive English-language resource on the city, The Rio de Janeiro Reader presents the "Marvelous City" in all its complexity, importance, and intrigue.
Call Number: F2646.3 .R568 2016
Transgender Voices by
In this extraordinary book, based on 150 in-depth interviews, Lori B. Girshick, a sociologist and social justice activist, brings together the voices of sex- and gender-diverse people who speak with absolute candor about their lives. Girshick presents transpeople speaking in their own voices about identity, coming out, passing, sexual orientation, relationship negotiations and the dynamics of attraction, homophobia (including internalized fears), and bullying. She exposes the guilt and the shame that "gender police" use in their attempts to exert control and points out the many ways transpeople are discriminated against in daily life, from filling out identification documents to gender-segregated bathrooms. By showing us a variety of descriptions of diverse real lives and providing a thorough exploration of the embodied experiences of gender variant people, Girshick demonstrates that there is nothing inherently binary about gender, and that the way each of us experiences our own gender is, in fact, normal and natural.
Call Number: HQ77.7 .G57 2008
Streaming Videos
- And the March Continues!
And the March Continues! combines documentary and narrative forms to present a history of the lesbian movement in Mexico from its origins to the present. Testimonies from Mexican lesbians and movement leaders give impressions of daily life in their country. A dramatized encounter between Frida Kahlo, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (acclaimed 17th Century Mexican poet) and modern day Mexican revolutionary, Adelita, is a humorous but poignant acknowledgement of the historical and cultural impact made by these and other Mexican lesbians. - Global GayWhether it be regarding legalization in the Middle East and Africa or the focus of gay marriage laws in the West, after years of long diplomatic struggle, several world leaders have declared themselves in favor of the universal decriminalization of homosexuality. But victory won’t come easily. The countries that still punish homosexuality refuse to give in to international pressure. This film follows this battle for decriminalization through the lives and work of some of its fearless pioneers in Russia, Cuba, Cameroon, Nepal, and South Africa. Homosexuality is forbidden in almost half of the world and a global revolution is underway to obtain what UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and President Barack Obama call “the final frontier in human rights”—the universal decriminalization of homosexuality.
Databases
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
- Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Viewpoint essays, topic essays, and news and magazine articles on controversial issues. Browse for topics or search.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
- SIRS Issues Researcher This link opens in a new window
Viewpoint essays, topic essays, and news and magazine articles on controversial issues. Browse for topics or search.
See These Other Guides
Online from CCBC Libraries
Criminal love? : queer theory, culture, and politics in India by
The first-of-its-kind book that brings together queer theory, culture and politics in contemporary India.
Publication Date: 2017
Global Homophobia by
While homophobia is commonly characterized as individual and personal prejudice, this collection of essays instead explores homophobia as a transnational political phenomenon. Contributors theorize homophobia as a distinct configuration of repressive state-sponsored policies and practices with their own causes, explanations, and effects on how sexualities are understood and experienced in a range of national contexts. The essays include a broad range of geographic cases, including France, Ecuador, Iran, Lebanon, Poland, Singapore, and the United States.
Publication Date: 2013-10-25
Identities on the Move by
The development of new sexualities and gender identities has become a crucial issue in the field of literary and cultural studies in the first years of the twenty-first century. The roles of gender and sexual identities in the struggle for equality have become a major concern in both fields. The legacy of this process has its origins in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century. The Victorian preoccupation about the female body and sexual promiscuity was focused on the regulation of deviant elements in society and the control of venereal disease; homosexuals, lesbians, and prostitutes' identities were considered out of the norm and against the moral values of the time. The relationship between sexuality and gender identity has attracted wide-ranging discussion amongst feminist theorists during the last few decades. The methodologies of cultural studies and, in particular, of post-structuralism and post-colonialism, urges us to read and interpret different cultures and different texts in ways that enhance personal and collective views of identity which are culturally grounded. These readings question the postmodernist concept of identity by looking into more progressive views of identity and difference addressing post-positivist interpretations of key identity markers such as sex, gender, race, and agency. As a consequence, an individual's identity is recognized as culturally constructed and the result of power relations. Identities on the Move: Contemporary Representations of New Sexualities and Gender Identities offers creative insights on pressing issues and engages in productive dialogue. Identities on the Move to addresses the topic of new sexualities and gender identities and their representation in post-colonial and contemporary Anglophone literary, historical, and cultural productions from a trans-national, trans-cultural, and anti-essentialist perspective. The authors include the views and concerns of people of color, of women in the diaspora, in our evermore multiethnic and multicultural societies, and their representation in the media, films, popular culture, subcultures and the arts.
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
The Better Story: queer affects from the Middle East by
Illuminates the emotional significance of stories in response to racial traumas related to the Middle East.
Publication Date: 2013-03-01
Reclaiming the L-Word: Sappho's daughters out in Africa by
This brave and moving collection of stories by South African lesbian women from different backgrounds reminds us, again, that rights are never finally won in legislatures or in court rooms. They are won by people exercising them. The authors of the stories and poems in this book have done just that. They have stood up to celebrate the dignity of lesbian women in South Africa. Each contribution is different. And each intensely personal. And each one reminds us of the urgent need for us to stop hate crime and to create a safe society for all LGBT South Africans.
Publication Date: 2011-05-01
