Unwilling to know: male homosexuality at the crossroads of Europe, 1870-1965

Abstract

"Debates about homosexuality are historically shaped by national specificities. In comparative and empirically rich ways, Unwilling to Know explores how silence and code surrounded homosexuality in Belgium until well after the Second World War, challenging dominant narratives about the riseof a similar and simultaneous 'will to know' across Europe"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction: Small Countries and Grand Narratives -- Chapter 1: Cruising Through a Crossroads of Europe -- Chapter 2: The Problems and Priorities of Surveillance -- Chapter 3: The Legal Irrelevance of Sexual Specifics -- Chapter 4: Psychiatric Resistance to the Medicalization of Sin -- Chapter 5: Free Will Politics and the Avoidance of Inversion -- Chapter 6: Demographic Anxiety and Catholic Code -- Chapter 7: Literary Activism on Behalf of a Strange Love -- Coda: Pink Perils and Postwar Blues -- Bibliography -- Index.