No Kinky Porn, Please -- We're English
By Robin Lindley
"In England, the eighteenth century was a time of questioning, exploration, scientific advances, and an expanded worldview -- the birth of modernity, according to some historians.
This age of remarkable energy and innovation also saw an explosion of erotic literature that reflected dynamic social and cultural changes as it challenged the authority of Church and State, satirized the hypocritical, and explored the fantasies of its consumers.
In Mighty Lewd Books: The Development of Pornography in Eighteenth-Century England (Palgrave MacMillan), Dr. Julie Peakman, a specialist in women’s history and the history of sexuality, examines hundreds of examples of erotica from the period and discusses how these works convey insights about the culture, behavior, politics, science and society of the time. . . .
Many historians of eighteenth-century England consider Dr. Peakman’s Mighty Lewd Books a classic that advances a radical approach to the study of sexuality from a feminist perspective. The book, originally published in 2003, was recently reissued. In the forward to the new edition, Dr. Peakman notes the surge of scholarly interest in the history of sexuality and erotica in the past decade, and adds, “What interests us is what pornography tells us about our culture, past and present.”
An interview with the author follows the book review
http://hnn.us/articles/no-kinky-porn-please-were-english
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