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H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-German@h-net.msu.edu (February 2008) Michael A. Lombardi-Nash, trans. and ed. _Sodomites and Urnings: Homosexual Representations in Classic German Journals_. London: Harrington Park Press, 2006. Bibliography, index. $89.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-56023-698-6; $28.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-56023-699-3. Reviewed for H-German by Clayton J. Whisnant, Department of History, Wofford College New Translations of Nineteenth-Century Works on Homosexuality Having already done a great service by translating several classic German-language works of sexology from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Michael Lombardi-Nash delivers another installment, this one an interesting collection by such important figures as Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Magnus Hirschfeld, Karoly Maria Kertbeny, Carl Westphal, and others.[1] For anyone familiar with nineteenth-century works on same-sex desire, these names will be well-known. The most famous of the pieces included is the essay "Contrary Sexual Feeling: Symptom of a Neuropathic (Psychopathic) Condition" by Carl Westphal, who holds the honor of being "the first physician to write on homosexuality" (p. xxvii). This essay consequently is often cited as a first step in the medicalization of homosexuality explored by Michel Foucault and others that would take place over the course of the next century. It also represents an early form of the theory of homosexuality that by the end of the nineteenth century would become the dominant one: namely, that such men were "inverts" whose psychic gender stood in an inverted relationship with their physical sex. Less well known but just as interesting are the letters included in the collection. In the first section, we find four letters from Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, one of the earliest German activists in the fight against the criminalization of male homosexuality. In these letters, written to various family members in 1862, Ulrichs tried to justify his desire and to explain his decision to fight publicly against Prussia's sodomy law (Paragraph 143, which, as Ulrichs predicted, was adopted as Paragraph 175 of the German-wide legal code soon after unification). The letters depict a much more human side of Ulrichs than that found in his better-known scholarly publications.[2] They reveal an Ulrichs who argues with a sister, is involved in relationships with women that others around him clearly interpreted as flirtatious and perhaps even amorous, and yet attends dances with couples at which he cannot keep his eyes off the men around him. Most importantly, we find Ulrichs working through his ideas and trying to summon the courage to take on the monumental task in front of him: "I notice the most amazing observation about myself: the more grounds for proof I discover for my system, the more assured I become and the more do they become clear to me" (p. 6). We also get another side of him: the competitive Ulrichs who could be protective of his ideas. This trait comes through in a letter written in 1868 to Ulrichs from Karoly Maria Kertbeny, another early activist in the fight against Prussia's Paragraph 143. Although we do not have the original letter, Kertbeny was clearly defending himself from Ulrichs, who seems to have taken personally a difference of opinion between the two: "You must have understood, exactly because they were stimulated by you, that when people finally addressed the question seriously and scientifically, they would perhaps come to conclusions totally different than your own, with all good intentions" (p. 80). Kertbeny's ideas are outlined in the three open letters to the Prussian Minister of Justice, translated as "Paragraph 143 of the Prussian Penal Code." Scholars frequently cite the letters, as in them, Kertbeny first coins the term "homosexual." Nevertheless, most people will not be familiar with the fascinating Enlightenment-based legal reasoning that Kertbeny used to undermine the justifications for the Prussian sodomy law. As he explained it to Ulrichs, he believed that "only by juridical logic, by examination of the effects of the laws already existing ... [and] by laying bare of the contradiction, indeed, of the nonsense of that Paragraph in consequence of the concept of law" could the legislators ever be convinced to extinguish "the damnable Paragraph" (p. 83). A final essay of some significance is "What Interest Does the Women's Movement Have in Solving the Homosexual Problem?" written by Anna Rüling, whom Lombardi-Nash describes as the "first known lesbian activist." In this essay, Rüling outlined the various goals that the women's movement and the homosexual movement should have in common: the "rights of free individuals and of self-determination" (p. 39), the reform of marriage, and the fight against female prostitution. Moreover, "homosexual women have done their part in the greater women's movement" as "they are most responsible for activating the movement" (p. 39). She predicted that common interest would pull the movements together in the near future, bringing light to the "dark road" traveled so far by both organizations: "Revelation and truth are like the rising sun in the East--no power can force it out of its orbit. Slowly but surely it rises to its glittering zenith!" (p. 40). The other pieces included in the collection are of lesser interest, and indeed their inclusion feels a little random: a poem by Magnus Hirschfeld and two pieces from the post-World War II era (one by Kurt Hiller, a notable activist from the Weimar Era, and a second by Karl Meier, the editor of the Swiss magazine _Der Kreis_). The hardest of the works to read is a study of the wave of persecutions that broke out in the Netherlands in 1730, written by Dr. L.S.A.M. von Römer and published in Hirschfeld's _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_ in 1906. Although the gruesome details of the fate of the men caught up in this wave occasionally catches the reader's attention, in general the essay is badly organized and very hard to make much sense of. Most readers will no doubt skim it. It is not clear why it was included in the collection at all; surely there must have been essays more suitable. However, although the choice of a few of the pieces may leave the reader perplexed, in general this collection of translations is a success. The essays by Westphal and Kertbeny will no doubt be sought out by many English-speaking students of nineteenth-century sexology; hopefully, they will take the time to read the letters by Ulrichs and Kertbeny as well, which in their own way are just as enlightening. Notes [1]. His earlier translations include Magnus Hirschfeld, _Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress_, trans. Michael A. Lombardi-Nash (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1991); Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, _The Riddle of 'Man-Manly' Love: The Pioneering Work on Male Homosexuality_, trans. Michael A. Lombardi-Nash (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1994); Karl Ulrichs, _Manor_, trans. Michael Lombardi-Nash and Paul Nash (Los Angeles: Urania Manuscripts, 1995); Magnus Hirschfeld, _The Homosexuality of Men and Women_, trans. Michael A. Lombardi-Nash (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2000). [2]. Ulrichs, _The Riddle of 'Man-Manly' Love_. Copyright (c) 2008 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.
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