Urning : queer identity in the German nineteenth century

Author/Creator:

Pretsell, Douglas, author

Publication/Creation:

Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, [2024]

Format:

Book

More Details

Additional/Related Title Information

Full Title:

Urning : queer identity in the German nineteenth century / Douglas Pretsell

Subjects/Genre

Subjects:

Gay men--Germany--Identity--History--19th century
Gay activists--Germany--History--19th century
Gay identity
Gay men
LGBTQ+ activists
LGBTQ+ people
Sexual identity

Description/Summary

Table of Contents:

The First Urning: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, 1825-1895 -- From Page to Personhood: The Transmission of Urningtum, 1864-1868 -- Two Trials: Sensation, Horror, and the Urning in the Public Sphere, 1867-1870 -- Sins of the City: Karl Maria Kertbeny and the Social Cross-Dressers, 1865-1880 -- The Matchmaker of Switzerland: Jakob Rudolf Forster's Grassroots Activism in Germanic Switzerland, 1878-1897 -- Queering Psychiatry: Autobiographical Lobbying of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, 1864-1901 -- Belling the Cat: Adolf Glaser's Discreet Police Liaison in Berlin, 1878-1897 -- The Comradely Uranian: John Addington Symonds and the English Translation of the Urning, 1889-1893.

Bibliography:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary:

"In 1864, the German jurist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs coined the term "urning" as a word for same-sex attracted men. Over the next few years, first anonymously and then publicly, he campaigned against the public persecution of these men. "Urnings" engaged with Ulrichs to negotiate the finer points of their new identities and then set about trying to change the world around them. In Urning, Douglas Pretsell writes of same-sex attracted men in German-speaking Europe who used the neologism "urning" as a personal identity in the late nineteenth century. This was in the period before other terms such as "homosexual" gained currency. Drawing on letters, memoirs, and psychiatric case studies, the book uses first-hand autobiographic accounts to map out the contours of urning society. Urning explores the activist attempts of individuals seeking to transform society, even though they had no formal organization and, after Ulrichs left the scene, no spokesperson. As the century drew to a close, the efforts of Ulrichs and his followers paved the way for the launch of the world's first queer rights organization. Urning argues that these men were self-identified, self-constructed agents of their own destinies."--

Language:

English

Physical Type/Description:

xii, 272 pages ; 24 cm

Additional Physical Form:

Issued also in electronic format.

Additional Identifiers

Catalog ID (MMSID):

9937904891802486

ISBN:

9781487555603
1487555601

OCLC Number:

1396745709

Barcode:

010003574257