Ken Plummer

Modern homosexualities : fragments of lesbian and gay experience

This book of nineteen original essays by activists and academics documents and analyses the dramatic changes in lesbian and gay experience over the last twenty years. It charts the growth of lesbian and gay studies, and examines key issues around communitites, identities, relationships, sexualities and politics. These essays, edited by a leading author in the field, herald a new confidence and maturity for the growing field of lesbian and gay studies.

DOING LIFE HISTORIES

The practical problems involved in interpretation of personal documents collected from life histories are briefly discussed. Technical problems in data collection may involve choice of data gathering method interviewing dealing with transcriptions and problems of validity and representativeness but analysis of data problems when doing life histories involves intervention that must be acknowledged as tampering with the data. The degree of interpretation of raw data must be recognized. The challenge is to transform sometimes thousands of pages of typed script interviews biographies diaries dreams and observations into a coherent valid and analytically sound presentation. Two major interpreters are the interviewee and the sociologist. The sociologist has his/her own theories and constructs. The analytical problem involves the determination of the extent to which the sociologist progressively imposes second-order constructs on the understandings of the subjects and the extent to which the subjects own rational constructions of the word are understood by the sociologist. The continuum of contamination ranges from the original transcripts to the edited personal document to systematic thematic analysis to verification by anecdotes and generation of sociological theories of labeling identity drive reduction or otherwise. The location of the sociological input on the continuum determines the extent of sociological imposition on the original data. In life history analysis the end of the continuum on theory building would not occur unless it involved the subjects own accounts. A sociologists verification by anecdotes does not allow for the subjects point of view because there is usually no justification given for why some quotes are used and what ones are discarded. Systematic thematic analysis more closely approximates the appropriate life history method of analysis.

Studying Sexualities for a Better World? Ten Years of Sexualities

This article introduces a special edition of the journal Sexualities to celebrate its tenth anniversary. It reviews the development of the journal and inspects its contents over this time. It looks at topics covered, concepts developed and political implications. A final section considers some possible future areas for analysis and research.

Sociology : the basics

List of Illustrations. Social Hauntings. Preface: Welcome to the Social Maze 1. In a World I Never Made 2. Thinking About the Social 3. Teeming Social Life 4. Standing on the Shoulders of Giants 5. Cultivating Sociological Imaginations 6. Engaging the Empirical 7. Suffering Inequalities 8. Why Sociology? Conclusion: The Sociological Imagination - Twenty Theses. Appendix: Epigrammatic Sociology - Little Wisdoms to Ponder. Websites a Short Guide. References. Index

In Memoriam: William Simon (1930-2000)

One of the most influential sociologists of sexuality of the 20th century, William Simon, died of cancer on 21 July 2000, aged 70. This is the speech given by Ken Plummer at the memorial Celebration of the Life of Bill Simon held on Friday 20 October 2000 at A.D. Bruce Religious Center Chapel, University of Houston. It is followed by a bibliography of his work, and the article he was completing at the time of his death.

Editorial changeover: Farewell from Ken Plummer

By the mid 1990s, the once seemingly new Critical Sexualities Studies was starting to come of age. The 1960s through the 1980s had been an exciting time: debating ‘constructionism versus essentialism’, challenging the established terminologies of ‘the homosexual’, digging out new historical questions, questioning ideas of ‘the natural’, ‘the sexual’ and ‘sex/gender’, building a sense of the significance of the cultural, and of course building the new social movements of sexual and gender change. At the start of the 1990s, Lesbian and Gay Studies had started to become established across several countries, and ‘queer’ was just starting its innovative and radical journey through literary studies challenging and critiquing ‘heteronormativitities’. New journals were starting to appear: The Journal of History of Sexuality in 1990, and GLQ in 1993. For me, to repeat, this was a truly exciting moment. Sexualities was born to capture this excitement and to publish the widest range of this new ‘critical–empirical–theoretical–cultural–historical–sociological’ work. The new journal wanted not only to help provide a new space for publication

Critical humanism in a post-modern world

The ‘human being’ and ‘humanism’ have become thoroughly contested terms and widely denounced from a range of intellectual positions from behaviorism to post-modernism. After outlining some elements of the anti-humanist critique, the paper attempts to mount a defence. It concludes by suggesting some of the elements for a ‘critical humanism’, and suggests that postmodernism and humanism need not be incompatible.

Sexualities: Twenty years on

It was back in 1995 that I first discussed the idea for a new journal with Chris Rojek (then of SAGE). It was becoming clear then that there was a ferment of excitement emerging around a challenging new field of study. We had some discussions about possible titles: Queer Studies was, ironically, too limited and too literary; Intimacy Studies was too wide and insufficiently focused on the sexual. (I was working on the idea of Intimate Citizenship at the time, so the idea definitely appealed to me; but it would have led to a very different publication and emphasis). We kept it wide, cultural, and critical; I set up some broad goals, proposed a plan, mocked up a few issues, and drew up a very wide-ranging list of fields on enquiry (very much the same list as is used today, with a few modifications). And the new baby was born: Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society. At the time, I was really pleased with its title, design (silver on black) and its little logo. Exciting times and good memories. Much has happened since those earliest days. The International Association for the Study of Sexuality Society and Culture, for example, was founded in 1997. The European Sociological Association Sexualities Research Network (ESARN23) started in 2008.The American Sociological Association held its first conference on Sexualities 2018, Vol. 21(8) 1204–1210 ! The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1363460718788348 journals.sagepub.com/home/sex