Thomas W. Laqueur è uno storico e sessuologo americano il cui lavoro approfondisce le storie culturali della sessualità umana. La sua scrittura esamina come la nostra comprensione del corpo e del genere si sia evoluta nel corso dei secoli, scoprendo le intricate costruzioni sociali che plasmano le nostre vite intime. Attraverso una ricerca meticolosa, Laqueur offre profonde intuizioni su come le nostre percezioni della sessualità e del corpo si siano trasformate dall'antichità all'era moderna, sfidando le nozioni di natura intrinseca. Il suo approccio invita i lettori a riconsiderare le supposizioni profondamente radicate su cosa significhi essere umani e su come quell'identità sia forgiata sia da forze biologiche che culturali.
Turning Freud's famous dictum around, Thomas Laqueur posits that destiny is anatomy. Sex, in other words, is an artifice and Making Sex tells the story of sex in the west from the ancients to the moderns. It looks at how our predecessors thought about anatomy and analyzes our ideas on gender. číst celé
The Greek philosopher Diogenes said that when he died his body should be tossed over the city walls for beasts to scavenge. Why should he or anyone else care what became of his corpse? In The Work of the Dead, acclaimed cultural historian Thomas Laqueur examines why humanity has universally rejected Diogenes's argument. No culture has been indifferent to mortal remains. Even in our supposedly disenchanted scientific age, the dead body still matters- for individuals, communities, and nations. A remarkably ambitious history, The Work of the Dead offers a compelling and richly detailed account of how and why the living have cared for the dead, from antiquity to the twentieth century.
Almost all forms of sex are acceptable in modern times, but the most harmless and common form of sexuality is still awkward and shameful. Its acknowledgment is considered genuinely radical. Masturbation may be the last taboo. The ancient world paid little attention to the effects of masturbation, and self-pleasure began to be seen as a serious moral issue in the 18th century. Thomas W. Laqueur takes the reader through the history of masturbation from prehistoric times to the third wave of feminism, conceptual artists, and the internet.