The cross-disciplinary invention of sexuality: sexual science beyond the medical, 1890–1940

This project represents a fundamental rethinking of the emergence of the scientific study of human sexuality in the nineteenth century and reconsiders how modern understandings of sexuality were constructed. Professor Fisher and Dr Funke critique the hitherto dominant assumption that 'sexology' existed as a clearly understood and primarily medical field of knowledge. Instead their project presents a new account of the rise of a cross-disciplinary 'sexual science' driven by dissatisfaction with exclusively medical approaches. Additional areas of knowledge (eg anthropology, history, sociology) are beginning to be used in order to challenge existing biological explanations of sexuality, and this project sheds new light on this evolution.