Queer Voices in the Works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, 1883-1901

by Douglas Pretsell

Overview

This book is a critical edition of the autobiographical case studies used by the Austro-German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing between 1883 and 1901. Forty-one individual case studies of same-sex attracted men and women, in their own words, made an eye-catching component of Krafft-Ebing’s most important work, PsychopathiaSexualis. Although the psychiatrist probably edited the autobiographical case studies, with the racier passages rendered in rather rudimentary Latin, what is particularly remarkable is that he preserved an unmistakeable queer discourse in some of the case studies that disputed the pathologising ideologies of the psychiatric texts in which they were embedded.

Most of the autobiographies of same-sex attracted men follow the discursive patterns established in nineteenth-century psychiatry in providing descriptions of body features including genital size and shape, mental and physical health, family histories of health and disease, and accounts of life events from childhood to the present. This was because these men had been following Krafft-Ebing’s works and were now using their autobiographical contributions in Psychopathia Sexualis as a platform for negotiating the parameters of sexual orientation.

Women’s sexuality was a relatively undeveloped component of Krafft-Ebing’s sexology but there are four case studies of women containing autobiographical content. Similarly, gender variance was hardly differentiated from sexuality at this period, but there are three autobiographies that clearly articulate cross gender identification, anticipating the future categories of transsexual and transgender.

Krafft-Ebing reserved his therapeutic interventions to those individuals attracted to both sexes where hypnosis could supress same sex urges. Seven of these individuals supplied sexual autobiographies with two of them undergoing treatment as part of the overall case study.

Together, these forty-one accounts give the reader a window into queer self-conceptions in Austria and Germany as the nineteenth century drew to a close.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031173301
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	01/01/2023
Series:	Genders and Sexualities in History
Edition description:	1st ed. 2023
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Douglas Pretsell is a researcher in the Department of History at La Trobe University, Australia. His previous publications include The Correspondence of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs 1846–1894 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). With previous research experience in Psychology and Neuroscience, Pretsell brings a fresh perspective to the study of sexual science in nineteenth-century Austria and Germany.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1—INTRODUCTION.- ANNOTATION ABBREVIATIONS.- CHAPTER 2—The First Autobiography.- CHAPTER 3—Dissenters.- CHAPTER 4—Two Polemics.- CHAPTER 5—For the Good of Science.- CHAPTER 6—The Women.- CHAPTER 7—Gender Nonconformity.- CHAPTER 8—Pathologisers.- CHAPTER 9—Psychic Hermaphrodites.- CHAPTER 10—In Search of a Cure.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Alain Touwaide, PhD (Ronin Institute)
Description: This book on queer sexuality is derived from the work of German physician and psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Elbing (1840-1902), author of the groundbreaking "Psychopathia Sexualis," first published in 1886. It is comprised of 41 unsolicited autobiographic letters sent to Krafft-Elbing by same-sex attracted women and men, representing case studies. The original German publication is translated into English.
Purpose: The book complements the author's volume The Correspondence of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, 1846-1894 (Springer, 2020), a critical edition of the correspondence of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895), German lawyer, jurist, journalist, and writer regarded as a pioneer of sexology and the modern gay rights movement. The book aims to examine the birth of a new approach toward homosexuality, with ensuing necessary legal transformation toward the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th century. It also has a further goal, recognizing that "autobiographical efforts [by same-sex attracted women and men] had not been in vain."
Audience: This collection of first-person case studies will be of great interest to any historian of medicine, sexuality, and related legislation, including unsolicited and autobiographical material without any kind of filter. This book presents history in real time — the equivalent of present-day interviews. It is a rare and precious material for historians of medicine in any aspect of the discipline.
Features: After a general introduction that summarizes the cases and their analysis, the book presents the full English translation of a set of cases in nine sections defined by their commonalities, from "Dissenters" to "Psychic Hermaphrodites." The book duly references all texts with the data of their original publication (in German). These references can also be found on the internet as the "Note on the Text" (p. xi) specifies. The translations have been automatically generated and then revised by a professional translator. The book presents them as "raw material," without any kind of information, footnote, or commentary that would interfere with their reading, except for the analysis in the opening chapter. Nevertheless, a thematic index allows for transversal readings. Modern scholars unfamiliar with German can listen to the authors of these autobiographies, almost as in a conversation.
Assessment: This book is a valuable resource on the birth of a new approach toward homosexuality, including its psychiatric analysis and the ensuing efforts toward decriminalization. The first-person dimension of the text is particularly significant. According to the author, "Krafft-Elbings' deployment of the autobiographical voices of same-sex attracted men and women was an avenue for them to assert their own agency." This is not an interpretation "even if it was overwritten by psychiatric discourse," but a simple, direct, and honest self-discourse that is more valuable than any consideration by an analyst.

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