When “perverts” were religious: the Protestant sexualisation of asceticism in nineteenth-century Britain, India and Ireland

Anti-Catholic polemics from the mid-nineteenth century made frequent comparison between religious practices in Britain, Ireland and India. The supposed atrocities taking place at locations such as Lough Dearg in Country Donegal and at ‘Juggernaut’ (Jagganath) at Puri were denounced in terms which hinted strongly at a striking combination of extreme asceticism and perverse sexual enjoyment. In the same period the word ‘perversion’, which had hitherto referred to apostasy, started to develop connotations of sexual deviance. Protestant sexualised readings of Catholic and Hindu asceticism appear to have been an important site for the development of conceptions of deviant sexuality in general and masochism in particular

The Unfinished Historicist Project: In Praise of Suspicion

Published in Victoriographies (2011) and available via this link: http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/vic.2011.0007Copyright Edinburgh University PressPeer reviewe

Lost in the Maine Woods: Henry David Thoreau, Joseph Nicolar and the Penobscot World

The article discusses ways in which the essays in American author and historian Henry David Thoreau\u27s book “The Maine Woods” illustrate his relationship with Native Americans, particularly the Penobscot people. His confrontations with the Penobscot Nation are described as being characterized by instances of sudden insight and deep misunderstanding. Thoreau\u27s Native American guides are also cited as custodians of Penobscot culture who labored to fit Thoreau into their own lives

[Review of the book: Ethnology and Empire: Languages, Literature, and the Making of the North American Borderlands by Robert Lawrence Gunn]

Review of: Ethnology and Empire: Languages, Literature, and the Making of the North American Borderlands, by Robert Lawrence Gunn. New York: New York University Press, 2015