The future of the gay movement is best understood by searching its past. Sodomites and Urnings: Homosexual Representations in Classic German Journals provides a valuable glimpse into the past by presenting some of the most important seminal articles on homosexuality, translated with precision from the German language. This single resource provides readers with an inexpensive way to get previously unknown research and discussion of homosexuality's roots in Germany by gay movement pioneers like Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Karl Westphal, and lesbian activist Anna Rüling.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Germany was the center of much of the research and discussion about homosexuality. Sodomites and Urnings: Homosexual Representations in Classic German Journals explores the persecution and prosecution of homosexuals for the past two centuries as well as the path to decriminalization. Libraries, educators, and historians will discover the first known coming-out letters in world history, a speech by the first known lesbian activist, the first medical article to stigmatize homosexuality as a disease, and the first article to use the word "homosexual."
Translations in Sodomites and Urnings: Homosexual Representations in Classic German Journals include:
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs' coming out letters (1862)
Anna Rüling's 1905 discourse uniting the women's and the homosexual movements
Magnus Hirschfeld's poem inspired by his visit to Ulrichs' grave in Italy
Karoly Maria Kertbeny's letters (1869) in which the word "homosexual" first appeared publicly
1906 article on the mass execution of sodomites in the 1730s
Kurt Hiller's 1946 article on the terminology of what gays ought to call themselves
and much more!
Sodomites and Urnings: Homosexual Representations in Classic German Journals is crucial in laying the foundation for the future of the gay movement and is essential for libraries of all types, educators and their students, and historians.
