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9780226607955

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Is heterosexuality congenital or acquired? Is sexuality inborn or socially constructed? Or, according to the mushy middle model, is sexuality a bit inborn, a bit constructed? The loaded theories of sexuality's origin get a much needed historical look-see in Kahan's valuable, thought provoking book. --Jonathan Ned Katz, author of The Invention of Heterosexuality Recommended. . . Encyclopedic references to scholars and sources ranging from the seventeeth century to the present day make this highly theoretical yet very readable book nothing short of fascinating. --Choice Brief but ambitious. . . Supported by immense erudition and scholarly chops. . . This is a necessary, field-changing book that should be read by anyone interested in sexuality in any academic field or historical period. . . Vital to anyone who works on the history of sexuality and/or queer studies. The new paradigm Kahan gives us for understanding the relevance of supposedly superannuated sexual etiologies opens up an exciting new archive for scholars to explore. --Modern Philology Reading The Book of Minor Perverts is like trying to see new colors for the first time, like trying to remember the scenes of feeling that exceed the frames of scrapbook photographs. Kahan invites us to linger with history's book of minor so-called perverts and their thousands of so-called perversions in order to recover the erased, ignored, or forgotten sexualities that they embody. --The Rambling The Book of Minor Perverts remakes the history of sexuality. Kahan illuminates what is missing: the stories told since the eighteenth century, and peaking during the Modernist period, about how people become homosexual. This is brilliant, upending, field-changing work, which will take its place beside groundbreaking projects from major historians of sexuality such as Michel Foucault and David Halperin, and leading LGBTQ literary critics such as Eve Sedgwick and Valerie Traub. --Elizabeth Freeman, author of Time Binds

Is heterosexuality congenital or acquired? Is sexuality inborn or socially constructed? Or, according to the mushy middle model, is sexuality a bit inborn, a bit constructed? The loaded theories of sexuality's origin get a much needed historical look-see in Kahan's valuable, thought provoking book. --Jonathan Ned Katz, author of The Invention of Heterosexuality Recommended. . . Encyclopedic references to scholars and sources ranging from the seventeeth century to the present day make this highly theoretical yet very readable book nothing short of fascinating. --Choice Brief but ambitious. . . Supported by immense erudition and scholarly chops. . . This is a necessary, field-changing book that should be read by anyone interested in sexuality in any academic field or historical period. . . Vital to anyone who works on the history of sexuality and/or queer studies. The new paradigm Kahan gives us for understanding the relevance of supposedly superannuated sexual etiologies opens up an exciting new archive for scholars to explore. --Modern Philology I cannot help but admire the ambition of The Book of Minor Perverts. . . The real strength of this work resides in its thorough research, which allows for a broad range of examples without sacrificing the specific nuances of any one case. If this had been all The Book of Minor Perverts had accomplished, it would already be a valuable contribution to thinking about sexuality, literary methodologies, and modern literature. However, the study is framed by a further, complicating, and considerably more ambitious argument. Kahan links the congenital theory of sexuality--ascendant in the twentieth century, and the position opposed to the one he's attempting to recover--with an epistemological position. --The New Rambler Review Reading The Book of Minor Perverts is like trying to see new colors for the first time, like trying to remember the scenes of feeling that exceed the frames of scrapbook photographs. Kahan invites us to linger with history's book of minor so-called perverts and their thousands of so-called perversions in order to recover the erased, ignored, or forgotten sexualities that they embody. --The Rambling The Book of Minor Perverts remakes the history of sexuality. Kahan illuminates what is missing: the stories told since the eighteenth century, and peaking during the Modernist period, about how people become homosexual. This is brilliant, upending, field-changing work, which will take its place beside groundbreaking projects from major historians of sexuality such as Michel Foucault and David Halperin, and leading LGBTQ literary critics such as Eve Sedgwick and Valerie Traub. --Elizabeth Freeman, author of Time Binds

Is heterosexuality congenital or acquired? Is sexuality inborn or socially constructed? Or, according to the mushy middle model, is sexuality a bit inborn, a bit constructed? The loaded theories of sexuality's origin get a much needed historical look-see in Kahan's valuable, thought provoking book. --Jonathan Ned Katz, author of The Invention of Heterosexuality The Book of Minor Perverts remakes the history of sexuality. Kahan illuminates what is missing: the stories told since the eighteenth century, and peaking during the Modernist period, about how people become homosexual. This is brilliant, upending, field-changing work, which will take its place beside groundbreaking projects from major historians of sexuality such as Michel Foucault and David Halperin, and leading LGBTQ literary critics such as Eve Sedgwick and Valerie Traub. --Elizabeth Freeman, author of Time Binds

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Benjamin Kahan is professor of English and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Louisiana State University.

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