Jeffrey Weeks

'The World We Have Won' is a major study of transformations in erotic and intimate life since 1945. It addresses the changes that have transformed our ways of being, from welfarism to the pill, women's and gay liberation, from globalisation, consumerism and individualisation to new forms of intimacy.

"Based on extensive interviews with people in a variety of non-traditional relationships, this book argues that developments in the non-heterosexual world are closely linked to wider changes in the meaning of family and intimate relationships in society at large, and that each can cast light on the other. Same Sex Intimacies offers vivid accounts of the different ways non-heterosexual people have been able to create meaningful intimate relationships for themselves, and highlights the role of individual agency and collective endeavour in forging these 'life experiments': as friends, partners, parents and as members of communities. This book will provide compelling reading for students of the family, sexuality and lesbian and gay studies."--Jacket.

"The first part of the book discusses writers on sexuality, from Havelock Ellis to more recent influential thinkers such as Michel Foucault. Jeffrey Weeks gives an account of the social and political context in which they wrote, and assesses how their work has shaped our concepts of sexuality and intimacy. The second part of the book explores the ways in which sociologists and historians have been rethinking sexuality, and how 'the erotic' is being reinvented by new sexual and social movements. He examines the impact of AIDS as well as the gradual changes which have transformed personal lives in this century, and concludes with a review of attitudes and ideas at the end of the millennium." "This text will be of interest to specialists and students in the areas of sociology and social theory, and history, as well as all those working in the area of gender studies who are concerned with issues of sexuality and intimate life."--Jacket.

At the core of the ongoing debate over "values" is the issue of sexuality. Indeed, when conservative politicians invoke the notion of "family values," they imply a range of ideals centered around the limitation of sexual freedom. Sex and morality have become hot topics in this age of widespread uncertainty about the location of "right" and "wrong.". In Invented Moralities, renowned scholar Jeffrey Weeks explores the clashes over sexual values that characterize these contemporary debates. Working from what he calls a radical humanist perspective, Weeks looks at sexual mores in these times of confusion - from AIDS and the challenges of love and death, to the politics of diversity, to controversial topics such as sadomasochism, rape, and abortion rights. Invented Moralities asks us to move beyond the narrow focus on "right" and "wrong" sexual behavior, and instead turn our attention to the ethics of how we engage with the shifting landscapes of sexuality. As Weeks puts it, we need to develop "an ethic of relationships, not a morality of [sex] acts.". As a point of entry into the debate on values, Invented Moralities presents an imperative for the contemporary Left. In an even broader sense, this important work offers a celebration of individual freedom and the rich diversity of human goals.

"Provides a lucid and comprehensive analysis of the transformations of British sexual life from 1800 to the present. These changes are firmly located in the wider context of British social, political and cultural life, from industrialization, urbanisation and the impact of Empire and colonisation, through the experience of economic disruption, World Wars, the establishment of the welfare state, changing patterns of gender and the emergence of new sexual identities. This book also charts the rise of both progressive and conservative social movements, including feminism, LGBT activism, and fundamentalist movements. It is a history where the past continues to live in the present, and where the present provides ever more complex, and often controversial patterns of sexual life, with sexual and gender issues at the heart of contemporary politics."--Provided by publisher.

The new sociology of sexuality has a two-fold aim: to demonstrate how the social shapes the sexual; and to analyse how the sexual in turn becomes a focal point for personal identity, cultural anxiety value debates and political action. Drawing on papers from the 1994 British Sociological Association annual conference on 'Sexualities in Social Context', this volume bring together key contributors to this stimulating new approach. Topics covered include theoretical developments, the relationships between history and contemporary controversies, community and identity, especially in the context of AIDS, value conflicts and changes in the meanings of intimacy. The book as a whole offers a significant contribution into debates on sexuality as well as to the more general broadening of the sociological agenda.

"Virginia Woolf's extraordinary last novel, Between the Acts, was published in July 1941. In the weeks before she died in March that year, Woolf wrote that she planned to continue revising the book and that it was not ready for publication. Her husband prepared the work for publication after her death, and his revisions have become part of the text now widely read by students and scholars. Unlike most previous editions, the Cambridge edition returns to the final version of the novel as Woolf left it, examining the stages of composition and publication. Using the final typescript as a guide, this edition fully collates all variants and thus accounts for all the editorial decisions made by Leonard Woolf for the first published edition. With detailed explanatory notes, a chronology and an informative critical introduction, this volume will allow scholars to develop a fuller understanding of Woolf's last work"--

In June 1972, Jonathan Ned Katz's documentary play, Coming Out!, about gay and lesbian life and liberation, directed by David Roggensack, was produced by the New York Gay Activists Alliance, at its firehouse headquarters, in Soho. "In 2009," says Katz, "looking over these reviews for the first time in more than thirty years, I'm struck by the strong emotional responses reported, positive and negative. Even the worst review (see below, Marilyn Stasio, in Cue magazine, August 27-September 2, 1973) says that the play 'packs a wallop' and the material 'is dynamite stuff,' though the play is 'deadly as theatre.' I'm fascinated by the contradictory character of many of the reviews."