David Halperin
Encyclopedia
David M. Halperin is an American theorist in the fields of gender studies
, queer theory
, critical theory
, material culture and visual culture. He is the cofounder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
.
in 1973, having studied abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies
in 1972-1973. He received his PhD in Classics
and Humanities
from Stanford University
in 1980.
. From 1981 to 1996, he served as Professor of Literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
. In 1994, he taught at the University of Queensland
, and in 1995 at Monash University
. From 1996 to 1999, he was a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of New South Wales
. He is currently W. H. Auden Collegiate Professor of the History and Theory of Sexuality at the University of Michigan
, where he is also Professor of English, women’s studies, comparative literature, and classical studies.
In 1991, he co-founded the academic journal
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
, and served as its editor until 2006. His work has been published in the Journal of Bisexuality
, Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Journal of Homosexuality
, Michigan Feminist Studies, Michigan Quarterly Review
, Representations
, the Bryn Mawr Classical Review
, Ex Aequo, UNSW Tharunka, Australian Humanities Review, Sydney Star Observer
, The UTS Review, Salmagundi
, Blueboy
, History and Theory, Diacritics
, American Journal of Philology
, Classical Antiquity
, Ancient Philosophy
, Yale Review
, Critical Enquiry, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Notes & Queries, London Review of Books
, Journal of Japanese Studies
, Partisan Review
, and Classical Journal.
He has been a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome
and a Fellow at the National Humanities Center
in North Carolina, as well as a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University
in Canberra, and at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University
. In 2008-2009, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship
. He received the Michael Lynch Service Award from the Gay and Lesbian Caucus at the Modern Language Association
, as well as the Distinguished Editor Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. In 2011-2012, he received the Brudner Prize
at Yale University
.
Halperin is openly gay. In 1990, he launched a campaign to oppose the presence of the ROTC on the MIT campus, on the grounds that it discriminated against gay and lesbian students. That same year, he received death threat
s for his gay activism. In 1992, he was accused of sexually harassing
a male assistant professor, Theoharis C. Theoharis, in his department at MIT. In 2003, the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association
tried to ban his course entitled 'How to Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation.' In 2010, he wrote an open letter to Michigan's 52nd Attorney General
Mike Cox
to denounce the homophobic harassment of one of his staffer, Andrew Shirvell, towards a student, Chris Armstrong.
' speech in Plato
's Symposium
does not indicate a "taxonomy" of heterosexuals and homosexuals comparable to modern ones. According to Simon LeVay
, Halperin believes that "Aristophanes did not recognize a category of homosexual people, but only the separate categories of men-loving men and women-loving women" and that he "divided men-loving men into two independent 'sexualities' - the love of youths for adult men and the love of adult men for youths."
LeVay writes that Halperin's One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, "...encapsulates, in its very title, the notion that homosexuality was brought into existence by the invention, in the late nineteenth century, of the word used to define it." LeVay argues against such views, commenting that "It seems to me quite artificial to make the existence of homosexuality dependent on the coinage of a term to describe it." In his view, people can formulate the concept of homosexuality without the word, and even the ability to formulate the concept is irrelevant to the existence or nonexistence of homosexuality. LeVay concludes that, "Social constructivists
, particularly of the 'strong' variety represented by Halperin, seem to want to replace consciousness with self-consciousness, and a highly linguistic self-consciousness at that."
LeVay finds Halperin's interpretation of Aristophanes' speech in the Symposium "strained", since "the two kinds of love are represented by Aristophanes as being different stages of a single life course." John Boswell similarly notes that while Halperin stresses the age differential, "the creatures described by Aristophanes must have been seeking a partner of the same age, since, joined at birth, they were coeval."
Edward Stein writes that Halperin admits that a constructionist view of sexual orientation would be proven false if it could be shown that people's sexual orientations are innate.
demanded that his name be withdrawn as a recipient of the Brudner prize
because he did not want to be associated with Halperin, who won the Brudner for his book What Do Gay Men Want? and who Eribon accused of plagiarizing Eribon's work, Une morale du minoritaire. According to the French newspapers, Halperin has not yet responded to Eribon's claims.
Gender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
, queer theory
Queer theory
Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself...
, critical theory
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
, material culture and visual culture. He is the cofounder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
GLQ: The Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies is an academic journal based published by Duke University Press. It was co-founded by David M. Halperin and Carolyn Dinshaw. The current editors are Ann Cvetkovich, University of Texas in Austin and Annamarie Jagose, University of Auckland.-External...
.
Early life and education
David Halperin was born on April 2, 1952, in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Oberlin CollegeOberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
in 1973, having studied abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies
Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies
The Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome is an overseas study center in Rome, Italy for undergraduate students in fields related to Classical Studies. It was first established in 1965 by ten American colleges and universities; as of 2007 the number of member institutions has now...
in 1972-1973. He received his PhD in Classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
and Humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in 1980.
Career
In 1977, he served as Associate Director of the Summer Session of the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in RomeAmerican Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...
. From 1981 to 1996, he served as Professor of Literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
. In 1994, he taught at the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
, and in 1995 at Monash University
Monash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....
. From 1996 to 1999, he was a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
. He is currently W. H. Auden Collegiate Professor of the History and Theory of Sexuality at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, where he is also Professor of English, women’s studies, comparative literature, and classical studies.
In 1991, he co-founded the academic journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
GLQ: The Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies is an academic journal based published by Duke University Press. It was co-founded by David M. Halperin and Carolyn Dinshaw. The current editors are Ann Cvetkovich, University of Texas in Austin and Annamarie Jagose, University of Auckland.-External...
, and served as its editor until 2006. His work has been published in the Journal of Bisexuality
Journal of Bisexuality
The Journal of Bisexuality is a peer-reviewed academic journal published quarterly by the Taylor & Francis Group under the Routledge imprint...
, Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Journal of Homosexuality
Journal of Homosexuality
The Journal of Homosexuality is a peer-reviewed academic journal This forum for research into same-sex desire examines sexual practices and gender roles in their cultural, historical, interpersonal, and modern social contexts. In the fall of 2005, the Journal celebrated its 50th volume.- History...
, Michigan Feminist Studies, Michigan Quarterly Review
Michigan Quarterly Review
The Michigan Quarterly Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1962 and published at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.The quarterly publishes art, essays, interviews, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and book reviews as well as writing "in a wide variety of research areas", according to...
, Representations
Representations
Representations is an interdisciplinary journal in the humanities published quarterly by the University of California Press. The journals was established in 1983 and is the founding publication of the New Historicism movement of the 1980s. It covers topics including literary, historical, and...
, the Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Bryn Mawr Classical Review is an open access journal founded in 1990. It publishes reviews of current scholarly work in the field of classical studies including classical archaeology. This journal is the second oldest online humanities scholarly journal. It provides both online and print...
, Ex Aequo, UNSW Tharunka, Australian Humanities Review, Sydney Star Observer
Sydney Star Observer
The Sydney Star Observer is a free weekly tabloid and online newspaper that caters to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The paper is owned and published by Gay & Lesbian Community Publishing Limited, a community-owned and oriented business...
, The UTS Review, Salmagundi
Salmagundi (magazine)
Salmagundi is a quarterly periodical of the Humanities and Social Sciences which aims to address the general reader. It was founded in 1965, and Skidmore College has produced it since 1969. The name refers to Salmagundi, a salad dish originating in early 17th century England.-External links:* *...
, Blueboy
Blueboy (magazine)
Blueboy is a gay pornographic magazine with pictures of men in various states of undress, first published in California in 1975.Originally featuring more "softcore" images Blueboy is a gay pornographic magazine (founded by Elisandro Patino) with pictures of men in various states of undress,...
, History and Theory, Diacritics
Diacritics
diacritics is a quarterly academic journal established in 1971 at Cornell University and published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Articles serve to review recent literature in the field of literary criticism, and have covered topics in gender studies, political theory, psychoanalysis, queer...
, American Journal of Philology
American Journal of Philology
The American Journal of Philology is a quarterly academic journal established in 1880 by the classical scholar Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. It covers the field of philology, and related areas of classical literature, linguistics, history, philosophy,...
, Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, Ancient Philosophy
Ancient philosophy
This page lists some links to ancient philosophy. In Western philosophy, the spread of Christianity through the Roman Empire marked the ending of Hellenistic philosophy and ushered in the beginnings of Medieval philosophy, whereas in Eastern philosophy, the spread of Islam through the Arab Empire...
, Yale Review
Yale Review
The Yale Review is the self-proclaimed oldest literary quarterly in the United States. It is published by Yale University.It was founded originally in 1819 as The Christian Spectator. At its origin it was published to support Evangelicalism, but over time began to publish more on history and...
, Critical Enquiry, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Notes & Queries, London Review of Books
London Review of Books
The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
, Journal of Japanese Studies
Journal of Japanese Studies
The Journal of Japanese Studies is the most influential journal dealing with research on Japan in the United States. It is a multidisciplinary forum for communicating new information, new interpretations, and recent research results concerning Japan to the English-reading world...
, Partisan Review
Partisan Review
Partisan Review was an American political and literary quarterly published from 1934 to 2003, though it suspended publication between October 1936 and December 1937.-Overview:...
, and Classical Journal.
He has been a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome
American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...
and a Fellow at the National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center
The National Humanities Center is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. It is the only major independent institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities in the United States. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any...
in North Carolina, as well as a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
in Canberra, and at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
. In 2008-2009, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
. He received the Michael Lynch Service Award from the Gay and Lesbian Caucus at the Modern Language Association
Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...
, as well as the Distinguished Editor Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. In 2011-2012, he received the Brudner Prize
Brudner Prize
The James Robert Brudner Memorial Prize and Lecture at Yale University celebrates lifetime accomplishment and scholarly contributions in the field of lesbian and gay studies. It is bestowed annually by the Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale...
at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
.
Halperin is openly gay. In 1990, he launched a campaign to oppose the presence of the ROTC on the MIT campus, on the grounds that it discriminated against gay and lesbian students. That same year, he received death threat
Death threat
A death threat is a threat of death, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or groups of people. These threats are usually designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behavior, thus a death threat is a form of coercion...
s for his gay activism. In 1992, he was accused of sexually harassing
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
a male assistant professor, Theoharis C. Theoharis, in his department at MIT. In 2003, the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association
American Family Association
The American Family Association is a 501 non-profit organization that promotes conservative Christian values, such as opposition to same-sex marriage, pornography, and abortion, as well as other public policy goals such as deregulation of the oil industry and lobbying against the Employee Free...
tried to ban his course entitled 'How to Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation.' In 2010, he wrote an open letter to Michigan's 52nd Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
Mike Cox
Mike Cox
Mike Cox was Michigan's 52nd Attorney General; the first Republican to hold that office since 1955. Cox took office in 2003 and won re-election in 2006. Michigan Governor Jennifer M...
to denounce the homophobic harassment of one of his staffer, Andrew Shirvell, towards a student, Chris Armstrong.
Evaluations of Halperin's work
Halperin uses the method of genealogy to study the history of homosexuality. He argues that AristophanesAristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
' speech in Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
's Symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
does not indicate a "taxonomy" of heterosexuals and homosexuals comparable to modern ones. According to Simon LeVay
Simon LeVay
Simon LeVay is a British-American neuroscientist. He is known for his studies about brain structures and sexual orientation.-Personal life:LeVay was born on August 28, 1943 in Oxford, England...
, Halperin believes that "Aristophanes did not recognize a category of homosexual people, but only the separate categories of men-loving men and women-loving women" and that he "divided men-loving men into two independent 'sexualities' - the love of youths for adult men and the love of adult men for youths."
LeVay writes that Halperin's One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, "...encapsulates, in its very title, the notion that homosexuality was brought into existence by the invention, in the late nineteenth century, of the word used to define it." LeVay argues against such views, commenting that "It seems to me quite artificial to make the existence of homosexuality dependent on the coinage of a term to describe it." In his view, people can formulate the concept of homosexuality without the word, and even the ability to formulate the concept is irrelevant to the existence or nonexistence of homosexuality. LeVay concludes that, "Social constructivists
Social constructionism
Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological theories of knowledge that consider how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction is a concept or practice that is the construct of a particular group...
, particularly of the 'strong' variety represented by Halperin, seem to want to replace consciousness with self-consciousness, and a highly linguistic self-consciousness at that."
LeVay finds Halperin's interpretation of Aristophanes' speech in the Symposium "strained", since "the two kinds of love are represented by Aristophanes as being different stages of a single life course." John Boswell similarly notes that while Halperin stresses the age differential, "the creatures described by Aristophanes must have been seeking a partner of the same age, since, joined at birth, they were coeval."
Edward Stein writes that Halperin admits that a constructionist view of sexual orientation would be proven false if it could be shown that people's sexual orientations are innate.
Accusations of plagiarism
Didier EribonDidier Eribon
Didier Eribon is a French author and philosopher, and a historian of French intellectual life.- Biography :Didier Eribon was born in Reims....
demanded that his name be withdrawn as a recipient of the Brudner prize
Brudner Prize
The James Robert Brudner Memorial Prize and Lecture at Yale University celebrates lifetime accomplishment and scholarly contributions in the field of lesbian and gay studies. It is bestowed annually by the Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale...
because he did not want to be associated with Halperin, who won the Brudner for his book What Do Gay Men Want? and who Eribon accused of plagiarizing Eribon's work, Une morale du minoritaire. According to the French newspapers, Halperin has not yet responded to Eribon's claims.
Publications
- Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983)
- Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, edited with John J. Winkler and Froma I. Zeitlin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990)
- One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and other essays on Greek Love (New York: Routledge, 1990)
- The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, edited with Henry Abelove and Michele Aina Barale (New York: Routledge, 1993)
- Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)
- How to Do the History of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002)
- What Do Gay Men Want? (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007)
- Gay Shame, edited with Valerie Traub (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009)