Eros Underground

Greece and Rome in Gay Print Culture, 1953-65

Bibliographic Data

ID3640477
AuthorsAmy Richlin (0000-0003-1736-2828, University of Southern California, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume49
Issue3-4
Pages421-461
Publication date2005-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Homosexuality (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-8369 • E-ISSN: 1540-3602
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1300/j082v49n03_15
PMID16338902
OpenAlexW2313518735
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited18

This essay surveys the building of intellectual community through print culture in the nascent gay movement in the United States and in Europe in the mid-twentieth century. Amateur historians, especially Jim Kepner and W. Dorr Legg of ONE, used Greece and Rome as models on which to base claims for gay rights. Ancient history figured in ONE's educational enterprises, including articles in the magazine ONE, the ONE Institute, and Homophile Studies. The magazine writers and their readership faced problems in the accessibility of knowledge, which the increasing circulation of the magazines corrected, to a degree. Biases surviving from the Victorian period caused the popular idea of ancient homophile culture to favor Greece over Rome, and made Greek a code word. Antiquity also played a large, though decreasing, role in formations of homoerotic fantasy during this period

Aesthetics · Amateur · Archaeology · Art · Audience measurement · Fantasy · Literature · Media studies · Period (music · Political science · Sociology · American History and Culture · Classics · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Historical and Literary Studies · History · Law

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub