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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > General
Brave and fascinating, as well as important . . . . A scholarly and
comprehensive contribution to our growing knowledge of the history
of homosexuality.
--Jeffrey Weeks
Recent years have seen enormous attention devoted to the history
of sexuality in the Western world. But how has the West conceived
of non-western societies been influenced by these other traditions?
The Geography of Perversion and Desire is the first historical
study to demonstrate convincingly that the representation cultural
otherness, as found in European thought from the Enlightenment
through modern times, is closely interrelated with modern
constructions of homosexual identity. Travel reports and early
ethnographic accounts of cross-gender roles in the Americas,
Africa, and Asia corroborated the 18th century construction of the
sodomite identity. Similarly, the late 19th-century construction of
the third sex provoked much anthropological speculation on to
genetic versus societal nature of male-to-male sexual relations, a
precursor of current essentialist versus constructionist debates.
An invaluable contribution to the ongoing debates on cultural and
sexual otherness, this volume unravels how the categories of the
modern sodomite and later homosexual were inextricably intertwined
with essentialist definitions of racial identity. In encyclopedic
detail, Bleys traces how cross-cultural records were collected,
created, structured, manipulated, excerpted, reformulated, and
omitted in interaction with changing beliefs about male-to-male
sexuality. Focusing in such subjects as puritanism, sodomy, and
ethnicity in colonial North America; cross-gender behavior and
hermaphrodditism; the semiotics of genitalia; andthe parameters of
sexual science, The Geography of Perversion and Desire is a
breathtakingly thorough, cross cultural history of sexual
categories.
Drawing on travel reports and early ethnographic accounts, The
Geography of Perversion and Desire presents the first historical
study to demonstrate convincingly that the representation of
cultural otherness, as found in European thought from the
Enlightenment to modern times, is closely interrelated with modern
constructions of homosexual identity.
Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1885) published nothing in her
lifetime, save short extracts from her journals and letters which
her brother, William, included in his Guide to the Lakes. She spent
most of her life caring for her brother and his family, working,
traveling and studying with him and his friends who include de
Quincey and Coleridge. This selection for the first time presents
her writings as a discrete text, giving her a separate authorial
voice from that of her brother and bringing her to a new generation
of students, scholars and enthusiasts.
Wordsworth's journals, analyzed and set into context by Paul
Hamilton's insightful introduction, chronicle the hardships and
indispositions, the comings and goings, the windfalls and losses of
those around her, both at home and during her many travels,
revealing a relish for the experiences of others distinctly free
from Romantic egoism. Most significantly, in her Grasmere Journal,
she tells her own story, imposing her own narrative structure on
events and discovering the plot of her own life.
Through the use of eight original metaphors for understanding what
may happen in interviews and what may guide the interviewee (more
than telling the truth or revealing experiences), the reader is
encouraged to do interviews in clever ways. This text enables you
to question the interpretive nature and theoretical underpinnings
of the interview method, and of the knowledge which is conveyed
through it. The updated second edition includes new content on:
• How to avoid traps in interviews • How to
use interviewees with experience and insight • How
to work creatively with generative material • The value of
repeat interviewing over time • The importance of
supplementing interviews with other methods • Possibilities
of interview-based research accompanied by examples This text is
essential reading for upper undergraduate and postgraduate students
of qualitative methods, and researchers looking to more clearly
conceptualize their interviewing practice and explore its
theoretical basis. Mats Alvesson is professor at University
of Bath and is also affiliated with Lund University, Stockholm
School of Economics and Bayes Business School.
A comprehensive look at how John Dewey's ethics can inform
environmental issues.
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