Article ID: CBB907658431

Wilhelm Reich and Sexology from Below (2022)

unapi

Cat Moir (Author)


Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Volume: 45
Issue: 4
Pages: 625-650


Publication Date: 2022
Edition Details: Special issue: Case Studies in Knowledge from Below: From Historical to Political Epistemology
Language: English

One of sexologist Wilhelm Reich's most ambitious and enduring theories claims that sexuality and sexual repression play a central role in the production and reproduction of class structures and hierarchies. From 1927–1933, Reich combined his sexological work with his communist political convictions in a movement that became known as sex-pol. Reich developed some of his most provocative and potentially emancipatory theories through this empirical work with members of working-class communities. Though they often remain anonymous in his writings, the traces of their voices remain audible throughout. In this paper, I employ a Gramscian method, developed by post-colonial scholars, to read for the trace of proletarian voices in Reich's archive. I argue that these subjects helped to theorize the role of sex in producing and reproducing class oppression. Reading for the trace of proletarian voices in the archive expands our understanding of how working-class subjects in early twentieth-century Germany and Austria helped to produce concrete sexological knowledge from below.

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Associated with

Article Wolfe, Charles T.; Gerardo Ienna (2022) Knowledge from Below: Case Studies in Historical and Political Epistemology. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB907658431/

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Authors & Contributors
Ash, Mitchell G.
Fengler, Silke
Canel, Annie
Hähner-Rombach, Sylvelyn
Leimkugel, Frank
Luxbacher, Günther
Journals
Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Medical History
Acta Historica Leopoldina
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Physis: Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza
Publishers
Böhlau Verlag
Continuum
Deutsches Museum
Franz Steiner Verlag
Govi-Verlag
Harwood Academic Publishers
Concepts
History of science, as a discipline
Psychiatry
Psychology
Brain
Science and ethics
Medicine
People
Freud, Sigmund
Moll, Albert
Binswanger, Ludwig
Bühler, Karl
Ehrenfels, Christian von
Freud, Anna
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, early
Modern
Places
Austria
Germany
Europe
Switzerland
Great Britain
Sweden
Institutions
Women's Engineering Society
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
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