The Center for the Study of Sexual Culture: A New O R U with a Vanguard Focus on Sexuality

By Genevieve Shiffrar

November 13, 2000

This spring, a new center on campus will bring together people with a common interest in the ways in which sexuality takes on different meanings in different cultural contexts. The Center for the Study of Sexual Culture will be unique in its attention to culture; its concern with the variably constructed nature of sexuality will have two interdependent foci— it will investigate the centrality of sexuality to cultural formations of various kinds and will also examine the workings of specific sexual cultures. Michael Lucey, professor of French and Comparative Literature in the College of Letters and Science, will serve as its first director.

As one of eight new Organized Research Units (O R Us) on campus, the center will receive state funding and be assisted by a special allocation from Chancellor Berdahl for the next five years. The state has not provided funding for the creation of new O R Us since 1971 so when the call for new O R U proposals was sent out last year, Arts and Humanities Dean Ralph Hexter and core faculty of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies undergraduate minor program in U G I S jumped at the opportunity.

This diverse group of 22 faculty in 17 departments is on the cutting edge of studies in sexuality. They knew that the university needed a synergistic locale to further their research, collaborate in a cross-disciplinary way, reach out to the public, and attract to Cal top-of-the-line faculty and graduate students interested the study of sexuality.

Although these faculty belong primarily to the divisions of Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences in the College of Letters and Science, they hope to encourage participation from other schools such as the College of Environmental Design, the Richard & Rhonda Goldman School of Public Policy, the School of Law (Boalt Hall) and the School of Social Welfare.

They'll study a multitude of questions, some that at first glance seem unrelated to sexual issues. For example, questions of free speech have intricate connections to the way sexuality is understood within a culture. They are interested also in questions of transculturation, in the ways in which sexuality changes when cultures meet each other. They'll research the ways in which meanings attached to sexuality undergo transformation. For example, they may study how gays and lesbians perceive marriage or civilly recognized unions and chose whether or not to enter into such officially recognized relationships as they become available—an investigation of the differential affects of marginalization and civic recognition on the shape of individual sexual cultures.

They'll investigate forms of sexual commerce around the globe, the politics of reproduction in a global perspective, concepts of the nuclear family and structures of kinship, both those considered conventional and those considered alternative. In short, those affiliated with the center are interested in the broad and dynamic spectrum of sexual meaning.

As for infrastructure, the center will combine forces with the Beatrice Bain Research Group on Women and Gender, which also helps administers the graduate Designated Emphasis on Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

The group's first public project next year will be a conference, "Studying Sexual Culture," tentatively scheduled for September 2001. They'll invite representatives of other centers to assess the state of sexuality studies in the humanities and social sciences and to promote future collaboration.

Subsequently, the center will sponsor lectures, reading groups, and workshops and provide graduate fellowships. In these ways and others, the center will be positioned to create a productive atmosphere for graduate students and faculty.

Outreach activities will include lectures geared towards the community at large and a website with archives of past presentations and discussions. Long-term goals include a program to assist secondary school teachers incorporate sexual culture research into curricula.

The new Center will be among the first of its kind to examine specifically the ways in which sexual meanings are produced. The Center will build on disciplines such as women's studies, gay and lesbian studies and queer studies (which examines the ways in which sexual norms are established and challenged). In these disciplines in the past 10 years, questions started to arise suggesting the need for a focused inquiry into the cultural functioning of sexuality itself, both in relation to specific identities and more generally in its role in shaping wider cultural formations.

The new Center for the Study of Sexual Culture will be positioned to provide an institutional home for the insights and broader applications developed out of this research.