In celebration of the release of university professor Rebecca Davis’ book “Fierce Desires: A New History of Sex and Sexuality in America,” a lecture was held in Memorial Hall on Oct. 22. The lecture featured a panel of university professors from a variety of departments offering their reactions to the book.
Panelists for the lecture included political science and legal studies professor Claire Rasmussen, English professor Davy Knittle and Director of Diversity Education, Assessment & Outreach Adam Foley.
In their reflection on the book, Rasmussen noted that they were pleasantly surprised with the tone and direction that the book took.
“The creativity is where I found this text not a grim march through a violent past, though many of the stories are in fact quite grim, but also as a glimmer of hope,” Rassmussen said.
As a political science professor at the university, Rasmussen also brought up the political questions that the novel brought forth for them, noting that they were left wondering about the political use of the history of sexuality.
While the book features many mainstream stories covering the history of sexuality, the panelists also praised Davis’ inclusion of other stories that are less well known as well as the diverse voices she chose to highlight in the book.
“I think the choice in this text to highlight the sexual and gender identity stories of marginalized individuals highlights the diverse realities of sexual and gender identities,” Foley said . “It resists the oversimplification of leaning into white, cis, heteronormative norms that are often given as a context for discussions about sexuality, and in doing so, leave out the voices of a large majority of folks that do not fall within that space.”
The panelists also noted the scope of research that Davis completed in order to make the book as holistic of an account as possible. In fact, during the lecture, it was mentioned that the book is made up of 25 years of researching, reading and writing the history of sex and sexuality.
Another element of “Fierce Desires” that panelists mentioned was the fact that the book is an approachable read for a variety of audiences. Knittle brought up that he believes the book can be read and understood by the general public as well as queer scholars and feminist scholars alike.
“All these stories are in pursuit of the same larger project,” Knittle said. “As a result, the lesson for a feminist reader who has not thought much about a queer history of sexuality, or a queer reader who does not think of activism around feminist issues as personally relevant to them is that all debates about sex and sexuality in the US share a history of ideology and legislation.”
After the panelists shared their thoughts about the book, Davis shared her response to the panelists’ reactions and invited both the in-person audience and the Zoom audience to share their thoughts on and ask questions about the book.
Davis shared that she is currently working on a teaching guide for the book, and is trialing it this semester in her American Sexualities course at the university. She noted how in the course, an emphasis has been placed on the way in which society’s view of sex and sexuality has changed throughout the course of American history and spoke about how the social construction of labeling gender and sexuality may be the cause of that change.
Wrapping up the lecture, Davis noted what she wants the biggest takeaway to be for both the audience of the book and of the lecture.
“There’s a more profound takeaway from this history, that if you are a queer person today who experiences these desires, it’s not only that there were queer people in the past, but there was a whole queer social world that existed,” Davis said. “There was a whole different way of thinking about what desire is, and how it shapes who we are in our relationships with each other.”