Theorizing the Sexual Child in Modernity (PDF)

R. DANIELLE EGAN is Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, USA.
 
GAIL HAWKES teaches sociology at the University of New England, Australia.

"Though we have been in the grips of a kind of high-voltage paralysis on the subject of sexualizing children for at least half a century, this book is really the first to provide not only a broad-ranging analysis and history, but a reasoned and humane way out of it. It is a powerful and highly significant work that should generate wide discussion and pointed action." - James R Kincaid, Aerol Arnold Professor of English, University of Southern California; author of Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture and Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting

"This timely and thought-provoking book locates anxieties about children and sexuality in historical perspective, prompting us to question the sexualization phobia that has become such a pervasive feature of debates on childhood in contemporary western societies." - Stevi Jackson, Professor of Sociology and Director of The Centre for Women s Studies, The University of York, UK; author of Childhood and Sexuality, Heterosexuality in Question; co-author of Theorizing Sexuality

"More than a history of ideas between 1840 and 1940, this book is also, importantly, a history of the present. Not only does it illuminate historical specificities and continuities in thinking about child sexuality, it also critically intervenes in contemporary debates by connecting the figure of the sexual child to the politics of recognition." - Steven Angelides, Monash Fellow, Centre for Women s Studies & Gender Research/Sociology, Monash University, Australia; author of The History of Bisexuality