Southampton Stonewall Lecture 2017 Event

'Love and Perversion: The Modern History of Homophobia'

Why has same-sex desire often been associated with weak egos, strong drives, and narcissistic character disorders?

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud was never hostile to homosexuality. But post-Freudian analysts clung fiercely to a homophobic consensus, even if their reasoning changed under pressure of competing with sexuality researchers like Alfred Kinsey. This lecture will explain how homophobia and psychoanalysis evolved in tandem in the course of the sexual revolution of the 20th century. It explores how clever theory and activism finally got homosexuality removed from the official list of psychiatric illnesses - while reconceiving the connections between love and perversion for everyone.

Dagmar Herzog is a historian of sexuality and Distinguished Professor of History and Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of five books, including Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany (2005) and Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History (2011) as well as, most recently, Cold War Freud: Psychoanalysis in an Age of Catastrophes (2016). She is currently beginning a new project on the history of disability, entitled Unlearning Eugenics in Post-Nazi Europe.

The chair of the lecture will be Professor Mark Cornwall, Professor of Modern European History.

The Southampton Stonewall Lecture is devoted to the history of homosexuality or LGBT history and is part of an annual lecture series organised by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Southampton. The purpose of the lecture is to educate the present about the past; to showcase thinking and research about LGBT history; and to enhance the University of Southampton’s remit of promoting sexual diversity in the regional community.

The lecture will be followed by a charity collection for Stonewall.

RSVP by 6 February 2017

This event is free however you must register to attend and receive joining instructions. To register follow the booking link above.  If the event is fully booked please email Tracy Storey on tps@southampton.ac.uk and she will add you to the waiting list.

There will be refreshments served before the lecture from 17:30 and the lecture will be followed by a drinks reception.

This lecture is linked to an annual LGBT History Workshop organized at the University of Oxford.