The First Queer Politics: Sodomy Law Reform in the Early 19th c. Britain

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

Learn about an astonishing and almost  forgotten historical moment: the attempt to end the death penalty for sodomy in early 19th c. Britain

<p><em><strong>Can&#x27;t make the live event?  No problem!  You can watch the video recording at your convenience for 2 weeks.</strong></em></p><p>Did you know that the death penalty for sodomy was almost overturned in the 1830s?  This talk (based on new discoveries in Professor Upchurch&#x27;s latest book,<em> “Beyond the Law”: The Politics Ending the Death Penalty for Sodomy in Britain</em>)  will reveal a surprising, and almost forgotten moment in history:  the campaign in early 19th century Britain to end the death penalty for sodomy, culminating in two votes in Parliament, in 1835 and 1840-41. Amazingly, on both occasions, majorities in the House of Commons voted to end the death penalty—but reform was blocked in the House of Lords.
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While the reform itself failed, the records it left behind provide a remarkable body of evidence for cultural attitudes towards sex between men in the early 19th century.  This talk will explore the multiple ways in which different  groups of people understood what sodomy was, and what constituted an ethical response to it. The argument was made that execution for private consensual sexual conduct was immoral. A leader in the movement to abolish slavery was prominent in these efforts, as were relatives of people subject to arrest under the sodomy laws. Arguments stemming from utilitarian reform were a part of these debates, but so too were arguments for marital privacy, and the negative impact of the sodomy law on married couples.
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Jeffrey Weeks, author of the first landmark works of LGBTQ history for nineteenth century Britain, has called this research “a triumph of historical detective work… [that] is genuinely breaking new ground.”  Hear about the latest in LGBTQ history research:  a suprising, complex, and dramatic story that was almost entirely forgotten until Professor Upchurch uncovered it!  
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<p>Charles Upchurch is an Associate Professor of British history at Florida State University. He received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2003, and his research focuses on nineteenth-century British gender history, social and cultural history, and the history of sexuality. Prof. Upchurch’s newest book, “Beyond the Law”: The Politics of Ending the Death Penalty for Sodomy in Britain, published in 2021 by Temple University Press, investigates men who worked through the British parliament to reduce the penalties for sex between men in the early nineteenth century, telling the story of these men’s political actions, and the familial and social networks that made those actions possible. His first book, Before Wilde: Sex Between Men in Britain’s Age of Reform, explores the ways in which class influenced the interpretation of same-sex desire between 1820 and 1870. It calls attention to the widespread reporting of court cases related to sex between men in mainstream London newspapers, and places family reactions at the center of the narrative, in order to better understand how these acts were thought of within the broader culture. Since 2014 he has served as a Distinguished Academic Patron of LGBT History Month in the United Kingdom, he was a Scholar in Residence at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and he currently serves as the President of the Southern Conference on British Studies. </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>If I can&#x27;t make the live recording, can I watch the event at another time?</h3><p>The event will be recorded, and all ticket holders will receive a link to the recording by email the evening after the presentation, with a password to access it.  It will be available to view for 2 weeks after the live event. If you do not receive the link to the recording a couple of hours after the live event please email us—sometimes Eventbrite emails can get lost in spam/social folders.</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>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>

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The First Queer Politics: Sodomy Law Reform in the Early 19th c. Britain

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