
Reading Enlightenment Sexualities
Adam Komisaruk(Author)
Short Takes on Long Views (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 21. April 2026
Book
Hardback
122 pages
978-1-032-87434-0 (ISBN)
Description
The Enlightenment sought rational order in the world and found irrationality at every turn, especially where sex was concerned. The human body and its desires exposed powerful contradictions in an age inclined to systematic thinking. This short book surveys some varieties of sexual inquiry and anxiety that marked European culture during the eighteenth century: scientific understandings of sex differences, sexual behavior, and reproduction; attitudes toward homosexuality, transgenderism, and other nonconforming sexualities; the ways that sexual conduct was governed, and that government was sexualized; the sometimes complementary, sometimes antagonistic relationship between sexuality and religion; the sexual dimensions of colonialism and imperial expansion; and the ever-shifting purposes, markets, and definitions of obscene media. Each chapter also explores ways in which the sexual ambivalences of the Enlightenment persist to the present day.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
Postgraduate
Dimensions
Height: 223 mm
Width: 193 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
278 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-87434-0 (9781032874340)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Adam Komisaruk
Reading Enlightenment Sexualities
E-Book
04/2026
1st Edition
Taylor & Francis
€31.49
Available for download

Adam Komisaruk
Reading Enlightenment Sexualities
E-Book
04/2026
1st Edition
Taylor & Francis
€31.49
Available for download
Person
Adam Komisaruk is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English at West Virginia University. He is the author of Sexual Privatism in British Romantic Writing: A Public of One (2019) and the editor of Erasmus Darwin's The Botanic Garden (with Allison Dushane, 2017).
Content
Introduction: Sexualities Enlightened and Unenlightened 1. Sexual Science: The Normal and the Morbid 2. Gender (Non)conformity: (Not) Knowing for Sure 3. Sex and the State: Criminal and Civil Laws 4. Sex and the Church: Belief and Non-Belief 5. Global Sex: Exploration and Exploitation 6. Pornography: Erotic and Para-Erotic Texts. Afterword