1869: The Birth of 'Homosexuality' in Germany

Professor Andrew Lear is a world-renowned expert on sexuality in art and the author of the best-known book on sexuality in Greek vase-painting.  He is the founder of Oscar Wilde Tours, the gay history tour company, and Shady Ladies Tours, the woman's history tour company.

Andrew Lear

The story of the  German activists, physicians, and artists who started thinking about “homosexuality” in a modern way – 150 years ago!

<h3>Can't make the live event? Buy a ticket for the recording and watch the event in your own time! See FAQs below for more info.</h3><p>Karl Maria Kertbeny (1824-1882) was the first person in any language to combine the prefix “homo-“ with the root “sex” in order to describe someone with an innate unchanging sexual orientation toward a member of their own sex. He did so in a German publication in 1869, calling for the end of the criminal prosecution of sex between men. </p><p>At the same time, Kertbeny’s “comrade in arms,” Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) was actively fighting for the rights of people he called “urnings” (who had male bodies, but female souls, or female bodies with male souls). A century before Stonewall, he spoke at a legal conference in Munich, outing himself as an “urning” and demanding full legal rights for all urnings.</p><p>In Berlin, Carl Maria Westphal (1833-1890) published an article on “inversion,” which relied extensively on Ulrichs’s writings and which Michel Foucault has called a marker for “the birth of homosexuality.” </p><p>After this burst of energy in 1869, German-speaking activists, physicians, psychologists, politicians, novelists, dramatists, and poets published extensively on male and female homosexuality. Starting in 1896, Adolf Brand published a lavish and beautiful journal for men who were devoted to masculine culture, while Magnus Hirschfeld stated his scholarly Yearbook for Sexual Intermediary Types in 1897. The poet Elisar von Kupffer published the first anthology of gay poetry in 1899. In 1901, Aimée Duc published a novel on lesbians called Are They Women?  </p><p>Who were these people, what was their world like, and why were they so interested in same-sex love? Join Prof. Robert Tobin, author of <em>Peripheral Desires: The German Discovery of Sex</em> (2015), who will answer these questions and explore much more about this revolutionary moment in Germany, a moment that affected gay rights forever.</p>

<p><strong>Robert Tobin</strong> is the author of Peripheral Desires: The German Discovery of Sex (2015), Doctor’s Orders: Goethe and Enlightenment Thought (2001), and Warm Brothers: Queer Theory and the Age of Goethe (2000). He is also the co-author of LGBTQ+ Worcester For the Record (2020) and the co-editor of A Song for Europe: Popular Music and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest (2007). He holds the Henry J Leir Chair in Comparative Literature at Clark University, in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses on German culture and LGBTQ+ Studies.</p><p></p>

<h2>FAQs</h2><h3>When will the Zoom invite come?</h3><p>The Zoom invite will be in the CONFIRMATION EMAIL from your order—IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVE IT IN YOUR CONFIRMATION EMAIL PLEASE MESSAGE US IMMEDIATELY. Subsequent to this, the Zoom invite will be sent to your email address at 48hrs, 2hrs, and 10mins before the event. PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM AND SOCIAL FOLDERS IF YOU DO NOT SEE THE ZOOM INVITE IN YOUR INBOX.</p><h3>What time zone is the event scheduled in?</h3><p>The event is scheduled for 2pm EST (i.e. New York time). You can watch it in any time zone but please adjust to the time zone you are in.</p><h3>Will the event be recorded and available to view later?</h3><p>Yes the event will be recorded and you can buy a ticket for the recording above. If you buy a ticket for the recording you will be emailed automatically after the event with a link to the recording, available to view for 1 week after receiving the link. If you bought a ticket for the live event but couldn&#x27;t make it please email us and we will send you the link to the recording.</p><h3>Refund policy?</h3><p>Refunds are available up to the start time of the event. After the start time, refunds are only available if you have been unable to access the event.</p><p></p>

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1869: The Birth of 'Homosexuality' in Germany

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