Episode 1: Emperor Galba

You may already know about the gender-bending, sexually deviant Roman emperors Caligula, Nero, and Elagabalus, but do you know about the ill-fated Galba, who was a gruff, old-school Roman who nonetheless liked "muscular men"?

Podcast version:

https://soundcloud.com/chad-denton-3/episode-1-emperor-galba

Video version:

Readings:

Grant, Michael. Twelve Caesars
Brudell, James L., "Some Myths and Anomalies in the Study of Roman Homosexuality" in Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity, eds. Beert C. Verstraete and Vernon Provencal (New York: Routledge, 2006)
Morgan, Gwyn. 69 A.D.: The Year of the Four Emperors
Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars

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Episode 2: The Chevalier d'Eon

Here is the story of a successful diplomat and spy in eighteenth century Europe who suddenly declared that she was a woman, setting her up against the king and queen of France. Podcast version: https://soundcloud.com/chad-denton-3/episode-2-the-chavelier-deon Video version: Readings: Clark, Anna. " The Chevalier d’Eon, Rousseau, and New Ideas of Gender, Sex and the Self in the late Eighteenth Century" in Simon Burrows, J. Conlin, R. Goulbourne, & V. Mainz (Eds.), The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds Gender, Espionage and Politics in the Eighteenth Century (London: Continuum, 2010). Kates, Gary. Monsieur d'Eon Is a Woman: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade (Baltimore: John Hopkins University, 2001).

Episode 7: Love Letters and the Portuguese Inquisition

Two Brazilian historians once found love letters written by a Portuguese man to another man in the archives of the Portuguese Inquisition. Given where the letters were found, you might guess that the story is an unhappy one, but maybe not in the way that you think. Podcast version: https://soundcloud.com/chad-denton-3/episode-7 Video version: Readings: Mott, Luiz and Assunção, Aroldo. "Love's Labors Lost: Five Letters from a Seventeenth-Century Portuguese Sodomite" in The Pursuit of Sodomy: Male Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe (Harrington Park Press, 1989).

Episode 5: The Myth of the Beloved Disciple

If the idea that Jesus and one of the Apostles were lovers sounds like some appalling thing an off-Broadway playwright or a punk rock singer would come up with, well, the idea is actually older than that, and may have even been invoked by King James I, the very man who sponsored the King James Bible! Watch to hear the very odd but woefully incomplete story of the myth of the Beloved Disciple. Podcast version: https://soundcloud.com/chad-denton-3/episode-5-the-myth-of-the-beloved-disciple Video version: Readings: There really isn't "one book" that covers the topic (yet!), but a good general reference is Louis Crompton, Homosexuality & Civilization (Belknap Press, 2003).

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