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Link to original content: http://rictornorton.co.uk/extracts.htm
A Critique of Social Constructionism

Image of two men kissingA Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory by Rictor Norton

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. The Uses of Gay History
  2. Social Constructionism
  3. Essentialism
  4. Gender Nonconformity
  5. Sexual Identities
  6. Discourse versus Desire
  7. The Uses and Abuses of Theory
  8. Homosexual Identities
  9. Passive Roles
  10. Sexual Orientation
  11. Exclusive Homosexuality
  12. Bisexuality
  13. The Myth of the Modern Homosexual
  14. The Term 'Homosexual'
  15. A False 'Birth'
  16. The Medicalization of Homosexuality
  17. Internalized Homophobia
  18. Inversion and Subversion
  19. Intergenerational and Egalitarian Models
  20. Capitalism and the Family
  21. Labelling Theory
  22. The 'Sodomite' and the 'Lesbian'
  23. Queer Language
  24. Queer Culture vs. Homophobic Discourse
  25. The False Charge of 'Anachronism'
  26. Political Definitions of 'The Lesbian'
  27. Queer Subcultures
  28. Walter Benjamin's Theory of Cultural Work
  29. F*ck Foucault: How Eighteenth-Century Homosexual History Validates the Essentialist Model (PDF file) (also available in Portuguese (Brazil)
  30. A Critique of the Theory of 'Sexual Scripts'

References

The essays on these pages are adapted and expanded from my book The Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity (London and Washington: Continuum International, 1997).
(Copyright Rictor Norton. All rights reserved. Reproduction for sale or profit prohibited. This critique may not be archived, republished or redistributed without the permission of the author.)

CITATION: Rictor Norton, A Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory, 1 June 2002, expanded 11 July 2002 onwards, updated 30 Jan. 2021 <http://www.rictornorton.co.uk/extracts.htm>

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