Homosexuality in Modern France

Book excerpt: Research in the Field of Gay and Lesbian Studies has exploded in recent years, but the books published to date focus more on literary than historical issues, and concentrate more on the United States and Great Britain than the rest of the world. Given the role of gays and lesbians in modern French culture, not to mention the importance of the work of French scholars on the history of sexuality, France has been underrepresented in recent publications on both sides of the Atlantic. This exciting collection is the first attempt in any language to explore this subject over three centuries from a variety of perspectives. Based on archival research textual analysis, Homosexuality in Modern France examines the realities and representations of same-sex sexuality in France in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, the period that witnessed the emergence of "homosexuality" in the modern sense of the world.