Celibacies

Kahan Benjamin Kahan

Description

In this innovative study, Benjamin Kahan traces the elusive history of modern celibacy. Arguing that celibacy is a distinct sexuality with its own practices and pleasures, Kahan shows it to be much more than the renunciation of sex or a cover for homosexuality. Celibacies focuses on a diverse group of authors, social activists, and artists, spanning from the suffragettes to Henry James, and from the Harlem Renaissance's Father Divine to Andy Warhol. This array of figures reveals the many varieties of celibacy that have until now escaped scholars of literary modernism and sexuality. Ultimately, this book wrests the discussion of celibacy and sexual restraint away from social and religious conservatism, resituating celibacy within a history of political protest and artistic experimentation. Celibacies offers an entirely new perspective on this little-understood sexual identity and initiates a profound reconsideration of the nature and constitution of sexuality.

Sujets

• USA
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 25 novembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822377184
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Celibacies

Duke University Press

Durham and London

2013

Celibacies

American Modernism & Sexual Life

benjamin kahan

© 2013 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper∞ Designed by Courtney Baker Typeset in Whitman by Copperline Book Services, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kahan, Benjamin. Celibacies : American modernism and sexual life / Benjamin Kahan. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn978-0-8223-5554-0 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn978-0-8223-5568-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sexual abstinence—Political aspects—United States. 2. Celibacy—Political aspects—United States. 3. Arts—Political aspects—United States— History—20th century. I . Title. hq800.15k34 2013 613.9—dc23 2013020977

To Mom and Dad

with all my love

Many people have their richest mental/emotional involvement with sexual acts that they don’t do, or even don’twantto do. —eve sedgwick,Epistemology of the Closet

Contents

1

2 3

4

5

Acknowledgments xi

introduction The Expressive Hypothesis 1

TheLongueDuréeofCelibacy:Boston Marriage, Female Friendship, and the Invention of Homosexuality 33

Celibate Time 56

TheOtherHarlemRenaissance:Father Divine, Celibate Economics, and the Making of Black Sexuality 81

TheCelibateAmerican:Closetedness, Emigration, and Queer Citizenship before Stonewall 99

PhilosophicalBachelorhood,Philosophical Spinsterhood, and Celibate Modernity 121

conclusion Asexuality / Neutrality / Relationality 142

Notes 155 Bibliography 199 Index 223