Sex concerns us. It is seen in advertisements, TV series, the success of self-help sexology, pornographic novels in the supermarket, debates on neo-puritanism versus pornofication, and intense media coverage of cases of incest and paedophilia etc. Sex plays a prominent role in media, in our daily lives, in culture - maybe more than ever before, or maybe just in more explicit ways.
The research unit Sexuality Studies investigates the relation between sexuality and culture. It is our belief that sexuality and sexual desire have far-reaching impact on our self-image and social ties, on our culture and our institutions, to the extent that research and teaching herein should be more central. It is the ambition of Sexuality Studies to contribute to an increased academic focus on sexuality. Although the research unit has its origin in the humanities, collaboration with medical and sociological research on sexuality is a major goal. Sexuality is in the body, in society, in culture, and is formed of these – interdisciplinary cooperation is therefore essential in order to understand sexuality.
Sexuality might potentially have an impact on everything we do, and we want to examine the targets of sexual desires and how sexuality affects our body, practices, rituals, institutions and cultures. Sexuality Studies deals with how sexuality both explicitly and implicitly interacts with cultural products. The unit regards sexuality in its historical context in an attempt to understand how the transformations of the understanding of sexuality, love and sex have happened across time. Topics for the group may consist of synchronous, historical research like medieval courtly love; mannerist eroticised ornaments; lewd paintings and perverted fashion at royal courts in the Rococo; erotic utopias of the 20th century avant-garde movements, or analyses of contemporary internet sex. But the group also deals with issues in a diachronic perspective, such as changing perceptions of the child's sexuality over time, of the mature woman's sexual attraction or importance of the shift from love letters on paper to courting via digital media.