Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900This highly original book brings into focus the sexual discourses manifest in a wealth of little-studied source material—medical texts, legal documents, religious literature, dream interpretation manuals, shadow theater, and travelogues—in a nuanced, wide-ranging, and powerfully analytic exploration of Ottoman sexual thought and practices from the heyday of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth. Following on the work of Foucault, Gagnon, Laqueur, and others, the premise of the book is that people shape their ideas of what is permissible, define boundaries of right and wrong, and imagine their sexual worlds through the set of discourses available to them. Dror Ze’evi finds that while some of these discourses were restrictive and others more permissive, all treated sex in its many manifestations as a natural human pursuit. And, he further argues that all these discourses were transformed and finally silenced in the last century, leaving very little to inform Middle Eastern societies in sexual matters. With its innovative approach toward the history of sexuality in the Middle East, Producing Desire sheds new light on the history of the Ottoman Empire, on the history of sexuality and gender, and on the Islamic Middle East today. |
Contents
Sex as Script | 1 |
Medicine and Physiognomy | 16 |
Shari aa and Kanun | 48 |
Orthodoxy Sufism and Beardless Youths | 77 |
4 Dream Interpretation and the Unconscious | 99 |
Shadow Theater as a SexualCounterScript | 125 |
Other editions - View all
Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500 ... Dror Ze’evi No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
ªAbd akçe al-Dajj1ni al-DEn al-N1bulusi Arabic Artemidorus basic beardless body boys Cairo Çelebi changes chapter concepts crimes culture debate described discussion dream interpretation dreamer early Efendi elite emerged Encyclopedia of Islam Europe European Evliya Çelebi female gender Hacivat heteronormalized homoerotic Homoeroticism homosexuality humoral Ibid Ibn Isn1q Ibn SErEn Ibn Taymiyya îeriat images intercourse Istanbul Kadizadelis kanun Kit1b Koran later literature mainly male Mamluk medicine Medieval Middle Eastern modern morality Muslim nadEth nineteenth century Old Ottoman Criminal one’s orthodox Ottoman Empire Ottoman Middle East Ottoman world Paîa pederasty penis physicians practices premodern Prophet punishment religious sam1ª same-sex says semen seventeenth sexual discourse sexual offenses sexual scripts Sexuality in Islam shadow theater sharEªa slave social society story Sufi Sufism sultan symbols TaªbEr texts tion tradition translated travel literature travelers travelogues treatises Turkish ulema University Press woman women zin1 zina