Thomas W. Laqueur

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Thomas W. Laqueur

| image = Laqueur OSA, May 2016.jpg

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| caption = Laqueur at the Blinken Open Society Archives in Budapest, May 2016.

| birth_name = Thomas Walter Laqueur

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1945|09|06}}

| birth_place = Istanbul, Turkey

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| fields = History, Sexology

| workplaces = University of California, Berkeley

| alma_mater = Nuffield College, Oxford, Princeton University, Swarthmore College

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| known_for = One-sex and two-sex theories

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| awards = Rockefeller Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship,{{cite web |url=http://history.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Laqueur_CV_0.pdf |title=Thomas W. Laqueur Curriculum Vitae |access-date=25 May 2016}} Cundill Prize in Historical Literature

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Thomas Walter Laqueur (born September 6, 1945) is an American historian, sexologist and writer. He is the author of Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation and Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud as well as many articles and reviews. He is the winner of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award,{{cite web | author = Database | date = n.d. | url = http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/author/default.asp?aid=17347 | title = Thomas W. Laqueur | publisher = MIT Press | access-date = February 16, 2012 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090211065129/http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/author/default.asp?aid=17347 | archive-date = February 11, 2009 }} and is currently the Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, located in Berkeley, California. Laqueur was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2015.{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Thomas+W.+Laqueur&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-02-22|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}

Thought

=One-sex model=

Laqueur wrote that there was an ancient "one-sex model", in which the woman was only described as imperfect man / human and he postulates that definitions of sex/gender were historically different and changeable.Laqueur, Thomas (1990). Making Sex: Body and Gender From the Greeks to Freud. Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|0-674-54349-1}}. 25-63.

This argument has been challenged by some historians of science, notably Katharine Park and Robert A. Nye;Park, Katharine; Nye, Robert A. (1991). "Destiny Is Anatomy, Review of Laqueurs Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud". The New Republic. 18. S. 53-57. Monica Green,Green, Monica (2010). "Bodily Essences: Bodies as Categories of Difference" in Linda Kalof, ed., A Cultural History of the Human Body, Vol. 2: In the Medieval Age. New York City: Berg Publishers. Heinz-Jürgen Voss,Voss, Heinz-Jürgen (2010): Making Sex Revisited: Dekonstruktion des Geschlechts aus biologisch-medizinischer Perspektive. Transcript, Bielefeld. and Helen King,{{Cite book|title=The one-sex body on trial: the classical and early modern evidence|last=King|first=Helen|publisher=Ashgate|year=2013|isbn=978-1138247628|location=London|oclc=957681362}} who reject the suggestion that ancient descriptions show a homogenous model, the one-sex model which then mutated in the 18th century to a two-sex model. They encourage a more differentiated perception that makes clear that gender theories of natural philosophy as well as biology and medicine, are embedded and constructed in certain social contexts.

Bibliography

=Books=

{{Cite book |last=Laqueur |first=Thomas |title=The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains |location=Princeton |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-691157-78-8}}
{{Cite book |last=Laqueur |first=Thomas |title=Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation |title-link=Solitary Sex |location=Brooklyn |publisher=Zone Books |year=2004 |isbn=1-890951-32-3}}
{{Cite book |last=Laqueur |first=Thomas |title=Making Sex: Body and Gender From the Greeks to Freud |location=Cambridge |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1990 |isbn=0-674-54349-1}}
{{Cite book |last=Gallagher |first=Catherine |author-link=Catherine Gallagher |last2=Laqueur |first2=Thomas |title=The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century |location=Berkeley |publisher=University of California Press |year=1987 |isbn=0-520-05960-3 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/makingofmodernbo00aspe}}
{{Cite book |last=Laqueur |first=Thomas |title=Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture, 1780–1850 |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1976 |isbn=0-300-01859-2 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/religionrespecta0000laqu}}

=Selected articles=

"The Queen Caroline Affair: Politics as Art in the Reign of George IV," The Journal of Modern History Vol. 54, No. 3, September 1982
{{cite web |author=Laqueur, Thomas W. |date=November 15, 2004 |url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2004/11/come_again.html |title=Come Again? – A History of the Orgasm Completely Misses the Point |work=Slate |access-date=February 16, 2012}}