Photography by Lee Ngatia Muita.
When we think about the history of sexuality, major events such as the Lavender Scare—a period in the mid-twentieth century when LGBTQ+ people were targeted and forced out of government jobs in the US—may come to mind. But the modern concept of sexuality, which barely existed before the nineteenth century, fails to capture the centuries before our contemporary beliefs. One course at Yale hopes to fill that gap.
Caleb Knapp, a lecturer in the Department of History at Yale, teaches Early Histories of Sexuality, a course that explores the historical, social, and cultural frameworks that informed people’s understandings of sex and relationships before the twentieth century. “The history of sexuality is a field that often focuses on the twentieth century or even the late nineteenth century forward,” Knapp said. “It’s at that point that sexuality is most legible as a kind of object for historical analysis.” The course pushes students to consider how people in vastly different periods and places understood their own bodies and relationships, as well as the structures and regimes that regulated them. It also examines how historians of today “think about the thing that we’re trying to study”, Knapp said. Examination of contemporary thinking is a key element that distinguishes this course from other comparable offerings. “This course has both a historical question and a historiographical and methodological question,” Knapp said.
In one class, Knapp led a discussion on British colonial prison systems and the impact of institutions on shaping societal views of sexuality. Knapp referenced an excerpt from literary historian Rovel Sequeira’s work to share insight into how colonial powers may have curtailed or controlled sexological discourse: “The intended short-circuiting of colonial prison sexology’s currency within and beyond ‘global’ sexual science consequently merits as much investigation as its subterranean success in engendering new forms of sexual/political life.” The class then examined how colonial powers stifle public knowledge of sexuality—a sharp contrast to today’s often-discussed, open conversations surrounding this topic.
Knapp emphasized the course’s wide applicability for students across disciplines. “It would be great for students in WGSS who have to think about the sort of histories of sex […] and historians because it’s a different take on the way to do history,” Knapp said. STEM students, too, benefit from the course, as it offers an opportunity to question how science and knowledge about sexuality have developed over time. In this way, the course becomes more than just an exploration of the past; it challenges students to rethink and question what it means to have a “history” of something so often framed as purely biological.
Students have the option of doing a traditional book review or creating a creative project like a podcast that engages deeply with the course readings in a new medium. “Creative work can give new insights and potentially even reach people outside the classroom,” Knapp said. His approach cultivates an atmosphere where knowledge isn’t merely produced for academic consumption but shared more broadly, letting students express their understanding of historical ideas in ways they find meaningful.
As the class evolves, Knapp hopes to include African, Latin American, and Pacific contexts. He noted that the limited archival documentation from non-Western, non-English sources creates a difficult gap that complicates the ability to present a truly global picture of pre-modern sexuality. “What constitutes an archive of sexuality? One of the questions when you start to think about the history of sexuality globally is not just what constitutes the archive, but how do we interpret it?” Knapp said.
In essence, Early Histories of Sexuality is more than a history class; it’s an invitation to view the past through a transformative lens. Knapp’s course embodies the true spirit of a liberal arts education, where students are encouraged to question and appreciate the complex history of sexuality without the imposition of modern biases. In doing so, students gain a richer, more nuanced understanding of sexuality that transcends time and geography, offering insights into how we might better understand ourselves and our society today.