HSY2400

Sexuality, decadence and modernity: politics, culture and society in Europe, c.1880-1918

Barbara Caine

8 points
* Two lectures and one tutorial per week
* Second semester
* Clayton and Caulfield

Objectives Students successfully completing this subject should have developed a knowledge of recent historical literature on this period, a general understanding of some of the theoretical issues involved in thinking about concepts such as `sexuality', `masculinity', `femininity', `modernism' and `decadence' in historical terms and a specific knowledge of their importance and meaning in this period, and an understanding of the nature of cultural history.

Synopsis This subject will explore the impact of imperialism, eugenics, psychoanalysis and sexology on society and culture in the late 19th century. The emergence of new and aggressive forms of masculinity associated with imperial expansion; the representation of subject races as `effeminate'; the preoccupation with homosexuality will all be explored alongside the emergence of `new woman' and of feminist and suffrage movements. The subject will also deal with questions of race, concerns about degeneration and `race suicide'; the emergence of anti-Semitism as a major cultural and political question, and at the connection between racial concerns and questions about sexuality. We will conclude with a discussion of the First World War, looking at the ways in which the war brought a reversal of traditional experiences, ideas and expectations of the sexes as women were forced into a range of new roles and activities, while men suffered the traumas of tranch warfare and shell-shock.

Assessment Seminar discussion: (10 minutes) 10%
* Tutorial paper (1500 words): 25%
* Essay selected from essay list (3000 words): 35%
* Examination (1.5 hours): 30%

Preliminary reading

Bauman Z Modernity and ambivalence 1991
Fletcher I (ed.) Decadence and the 1890s 1979
Mosse G L Nationalism and sexuality: Respectable and abnormal sexuality in modern Europe 1986
Walkowitz J City of dreadful delight: Narratives of sexual danger in late Victorian London 1992
Nochlin L and Tamar G (eds) The Jew in the text: Modernity and the construction of identity 1995