Queer voices in the works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, 1883-1901 / Douglas Pretsell.
2023
HQ71
Linked e-resources
Linked Resource
Online Access
Concurrent users
Unlimited
Authorized users
Authorized users
Document Delivery Supplied
Can lend chapters, not whole ebooks
Details
Title
Queer voices in the works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, 1883-1901 / Douglas Pretsell.
Author
Pretsell, Douglas, author.
ISBN
9783031173318 (electronic bk.)
3031173317 (electronic bk.)
9783031173301
3031173309
3031173317 (electronic bk.)
9783031173301
3031173309
Published
Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, [2023]
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (1 volume) : illustrations
Item Number
10.1007/978-3-031-17331-8 doi
Call Number
HQ71
Dewey Decimal Classification
616.85/83
Summary
This book is a critical edition of the autobiographical case studies used by the Austro-German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing between 1883 and 1901. Forty-one individual case studies of same-sex attracted men and women, in their own words, made an eye-catching component of Krafft-Ebings most important work, PsychopathiaSexualis. Although the psychiatrist probably edited the autobiographical case studies, with the racier passages rendered in rather rudimentary Latin, what is particularly remarkable is that he preserved an unmistakeable queer discourse in some of the case studies that disputed the pathologising ideologies of the psychiatric texts in which they were embedded. Most of the autobiographies of same-sex attracted men follow the discursive patterns established in nineteenth-century psychiatry in providing descriptions of body features including genital size and shape, mental and physical health, family histories of health and disease, and accounts of life events from childhood to the present. This was because these men had been following Krafft-Ebings works and were now using their autobiographical contributions in Psychopathia Sexualis as a platform for negotiating the parameters of sexual orientation. Womens sexuality was a relatively undeveloped component of Krafft-Ebings sexology but there are four case studies of women containing autobiographical content. Similarly, gender variance was hardly differentiated from sexuality at this period, but there are three autobiographies that clearly articulate cross gender identification, anticipating the future categories of transsexual and transgender. Krafft-Ebing reserved his therapeutic interventions to those individuals attracted to both sexes where hypnosis could supress same sex urges. Seven of these individuals supplied sexual autobiographies with two of them undergoing treatment as part of the overall case study. Together, these forty-one accounts give the reader a window into queer self-conceptions in Austria and Germany as the nineteenth century drew to a close. Douglas Pretsell is a researcher in the Department of History at La Trobe University, Australia. His previous publications include The Correspondence of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs 18461894 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). With previous research experience in Psychology and Neuroscience, Pretsell brings a fresh perspective to the study of sexual science in nineteenth-century Austria and Germany. .
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
Series
Genders and sexualities in history.
Available in Other Form
Queer voices in the works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, 1883-1901.
Linked Resources
Online Access
Record Appears in
Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
All Resources
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION
ANNOTATION ABBREVIATIONS
CHAPTER 2The First Autobiography
CHAPTER 3Dissenters
CHAPTER 4Two Polemics
CHAPTER 5For the Good of Science
CHAPTER 6The Women
CHAPTER 7Gender Nonconformity
CHAPTER 8Pathologisers
CHAPTER 9Psychic Hermaphrodites
CHAPTER 10In Search of a Cure.
ANNOTATION ABBREVIATIONS
CHAPTER 2The First Autobiography
CHAPTER 3Dissenters
CHAPTER 4Two Polemics
CHAPTER 5For the Good of Science
CHAPTER 6The Women
CHAPTER 7Gender Nonconformity
CHAPTER 8Pathologisers
CHAPTER 9Psychic Hermaphrodites
CHAPTER 10In Search of a Cure.