About this episode
The episode discusses the historical and artistic interpretations of male relationships and the male gaze, featuring insights from Tom Crewe and James Butler.
In a recent issue of the LRB, Tom Crewe asked if the Impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte’s fixation with male figures and the male gaze is evidence not just of a homosocial milieu, but of homosexual desire. Meanwhile, in the same issue of the paper, James Butler reviewed Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations 1400-1750 by the historian Noel Malcolm, who excavates archival evidence of sexual relationships and interactions between men in northern and southern Europe while cautioning against applying modern ideas of queerness to historical figures. Tom and James join Malin to discuss the interplay between their pieces, and to reflect on the ways that modern interpreters attempt to read the history of homosexuality in sometimes patchy archives, as well as on gay art in the past and the present. Read more in the LRB: Tom Crewe: Men Watching Men https://lrb.me/lrbpod04142601 James Butler: Cultures of Homosexuality https://lrb.me/lrbpod04142602 Alice Hunt: Out of Rehab https://lrb.me/lrbpod04142603 Also from the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: https://lrb.me/crlrbpod LRB Audiobooks…
People in this episode
Host: Malin
Guests: Tom Crewe, James Butler
Topics covered
- homosexuality
- art
- historical analysis
- male gaze
- queerness
- sexual relationships
Keywords
- Gustave Caillebotte
- male figures
- homosocial milieu
- sexual interactions
- historical queerness
- gay art
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The London Review of Books, LRB
Books & works: Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations 1400-1750, Men Watching Men
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