Visualizing Homoeroticism: The Photographs of Robert Gant, 1887-1892
Brickell, Chris
Cite this item:
Brickell, C. (2010). Visualizing Homoeroticism: The Photographs of Robert Gant, 1887-1892. Visual Anthropology, 23(2), 136–157. doi:10.1080/08949460903475492
Permanent link to OUR Archive version:
http://hdl.handle.net/10523/6539
Abstract:
How did 19th-century men understand and represent their same-sex desires in a time and place where homosexuality was publicly unnamable? In partial answer to this question, this article focuses on two photograph albums assembled by Robert Gant in New Zealand during the 1880s. It explores the themes implicit in these albums, and suggests that men like Gant could piece together homoerotic subjectivities by creating and collating visual materials. Gant's pictures, like those of his overseas contemporaries, evoked multiple meanings and encouraged sexually unorthodox readings of masculinity, bodies, clothing and expressions. Early photography, then, provided a complex site within which an unnamable sexuality could take shape.
Date:
2010
Publisher:
Taylor & Francis
Pages:
136-157
Rights Statement:
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Keywords:
homosexuality; homosociality; photography; New Zealand; history
Research Type:
Journal Article
Languages:
English
Collections
- Sociology, Gender and Social Work [241]
- Journal Article [918]
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