Speaker:
Dr Lutz D.H. Sauerteig (Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, Durham University)
Abstract:
Sex education literature can be read as a culturally and historically
contingent repertoire of concepts of the body, of how the sexual body was
understood and of what kind of knowledge about the sexual body should be
conveyed to the young. My paper will examine textual and visual
representations of pregnancy and childbirth in (West) German sex education
books from the 1900s to the 1970s. Over the entire period, nearly all sex
educators suggested that questions such as 'Where do I come from?' or 'How
does life begin?' were amongst the most burning questions in which the
young were interested. Simultaneously, by dealing with these issues sex
educators directed children's attention to the relevance of a specific
knowledge of reproduction. Authors used their narratives about pregnancy
and childbirth to strengthen the fine line they were at pains to draw
between mediating sexual knowledge to the young and inciting premature
sexual activities. At the same time, children's sexual understanding was
also shaped by the silences within these narratives and what sex educators
thought unimportant or inappropriate to convey to the young.
The knowledge imparted to the young about reproduction, the body's sexual
anatomy and physiology, as well as the emotional aspects involved in
reproduction also naturalized sex differences in reproduction. Hence,
knowledge of reproduction became central to the formation of gender
identities. In particular, the scripts for motherhood outlined in sex
education material (from the heroic and divine mother to the autonomous
pregnant woman) were fundamental to the construction of femaleness.
Biography:
Lutz Sauerteig is a historian of medicine, sexualities and bodies. He
studied Modern European History, History of Eastern and South-Eastern
Europe, Theatre Studies, and Cultural Anthropology in Munich, Oxford and
Berlin. He received his M.A. in History from the Ludwig-Maximilian's
University, Munich, in 1989 and his doctorate (Dr. phil.) in History from
the Humboldt University, Berlin, in 1996. From 1990 to 1992, he worked as
Research Assistant at the Institute for Modern History, University of
Munich. From 1994 to 2003 he lectured history of medicine at the Institute
for the History of Medicine, Medical Faculty, University of Freiburg. Since
May 2003, he is Lecturer for History of Medicine at the School of Medicine
and Health, Durham University, and a Wellcome University Award Holder
(2003-08). He is the Deputy Director of the Centre for the History of
Medicine and Disease and Fellow of the Wolfson Research Institute. From
November 2008, he also is chair of the Society for the Social History of
Medicine.
All welcome. No registration required.
Part of the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Reproduction Forum (CIRF)