Neither the sexual orientation of scientists nor its potential relevance as a biographical dimension of their work has received much attention from historians or sociologists. Through a series of biographical sketches of researchers and teachers in a range of scientific fields from the 1850s through the 1950s, this illustrated lecture explores what is lost when such concerns are neglected. Fascinating individuals, both famous and obscure, reveal some of the myriad ways that an often hidden queer presence has contributed to anthropology, biology, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, and the social sciences. These lives were chosen with four goals in mind: (i) to record the stories of a diverse group of exemplary lives; (ii) to make a plea for historians of science and medicine to provide readers a more frank acknowledgment of the potential relevance of personal life to intellectual work, even in the sciences; (iii) to open a scholarly discussion of the varying importance of scientists' private life, by examining several different kinds of interaction; and (iv) to highlight the problems of securing evidence and making nuanced and sound historical interpretation of intimate and sexual matters.

Page mise à jour le 20 août, 2003
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