Projects per year
Abstract
I argue that the contradictions and ambiguities which often characterised Mantegazza’s reflections are clearly apparent in his observations on sex between women. Moreover, I suggest that while his overall approach to women’s sexuality and social role was problematically conservative, his rhetorical strategies encourage readers to go beyond his ostensible meaning. At times, his observations even open up quite radical discourses, as indicated above: he questions moralistic condemnations of sexual “pathologies”; he seems to partially legitimise sex between women; and, whether consciously or unconsciously, his thought tends to unravel the very categories of sexuality (homo/heterosexuality) that were fast solidifying at the time.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Homosexuality in Italian Literature, Culture, and Society 1789-1919 |
Editors | Lorenzo Benadusi, Paolo Luca Bernardini, Paola Guazzo, Elisa Bianco |
Publisher | Cambridge Scholars Publishing |
Chapter | 2 |
Pages | 45-64 |
Number of pages | 19 |
ISBN (Print) | 1-4438-7288-1 |
Publication status | Published - 1 May 2017 |
Keywords
- Mantegazza
- sexology
- female sexuality
- same-sex desire
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Pathologies and Eroticism: Paolo Mantegazza’s Ambiguous Reflections on Female Same-sex Sexuality’'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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Eccentricity and Sameness: Lesbian Cultural Identity in Italy, 1883 to the present day.
Arts and Humanities Research Council
1/01/12 → 31/05/12
Project: Research Councils
Activities
- 1 Conference, workshop or symposium
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Pornography, pedagogy and 'perversion.' Paolo Mantegazza and debates on sex education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - conference paper
Charlotte Ross (Presenter)
4 Dec 2015 → 5 Dec 2015Activity: Academic and Industrial events › Conference, workshop or symposium