Sex Seen provides a complex and intriguing account of the changes that have taken place in the social construction of sexuality during the past century. Focusing on Sacramento, California, at the dawn of the twentieth century, Sharon Ullman juxtaposes early cinema, vaudeville performances, and popular newspapers and magazines with insights drawn from close interpretations of transcripts from Sacramento court cases. She demonstrates how attitudes that emerged in the popular discourse--ideas about gender roles, female desire, prostitution, divorce, and homosexuality--often found complex...

Since the 1980s, research in the history of sexuality has grown exponentially. Not surprisingly, this new research has made its way into the classroom. Professors across the country have struggled to integrate this often theoretically difficult and eclectic material into a coherent whole. Sexual Borderlands offers students accessible yet challenging essays that cover the subject's diversity, yet allows coherence in a field that often resists such attempts. It is organized around a potential course syllabus that allows students simultaneously to engage significant theoretical as well as...