Living in Arcadia
Homosexuality, Politics, and Morality in France from the Liberation to AIDS
Living in Arcadia
Homosexuality, Politics, and Morality in France from the Liberation to AIDS
In Paris in 1954, a young man named André Baudry founded Arcadie, an organization for “homophiles” that would become the largest of its kind that has ever existed in France, lasting nearly thirty years. In addition to acting as the only public voice for French gays prior to the explosion of radicalism of 1968, Arcadie—with its club and review—was a social and intellectual hub, attracting support from individuals as diverse as Jean Cocteau and Michel Foucault and offering support and solidarity to thousands of isolated individuals. Yet despite its huge importance, Arcadie has largely disappeared from the historical record.
The main cause of this neglect, Julian Jackson explains in Living in Arcadia, is that during the post-Stonewall era of queer activism, Baudry’s organization fell into disfavor, dismissed as conservative, conformist, and closeted. Through extensive archival research and numerous interviews with the reclusive Baudry, Jackson challenges this reductive view, uncovering Arcadie’s pioneering efforts to educate the European public about homosexuality in an era of renewed repression. In the course of relating this absorbing history, Jackson offers a startlingly original account of the history of homosexuality in modern France.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Introduction
Cambridge to Paris, 1978
“The French Exception”: Gay Historiography in France
Arcadie: The Unknown Story
Rethinking Arcadie
Part One. The Background
1. Homosexuality in France from the Revolution to Vichy
Homosexuality and the Revolution
Regulating Sexual Disorder in the Nineteenth Century
French Variations
Paris as Sodom
Homosexuality in Belle-Époque Paris
The Interwar Years: Talking about Homosexuality
2. The Shadow of the Occupation, 1942–1955
1940: Blame It on Gide
Fascinating Fascism: Sleeping with the Enemy
Liberation: “Beautiful Babies” and Unruly Youths
Moral Order
Freedom in Clandestinity: The “Civilization of the Pissotières”
Fighting the Puritans: Futur
Part Two. Et in Arcadia Ego, 1954–1968
3. Beginnings, 1954–1956
Losing a Vocation, 1922–1945
Finding a Vocation, 1946–1952
Young Man in a Hurry, 1953
Recruiting Support: Treason of the Clerks, 1954
Teething Troubles I: Quarrel with Amsterdam, 1955–1956
Teething Troubles II: “A Danger to Youth,” 1955–1956
4. Survival, 1956–1968
Living in the Catacombs, 1956–1957
Putting Down Roots, 1957–1959
A New Recruit: Daniel Guérin
“Social Scourge,” 1960
Arcadie Embattled, 1960–1964
Arcadie Becalmed, 1964–1968
5. The Vision of Arcadie: Homosexuality and Ethics
The Homophile International
Escaping the Shadow of Gide
Science and History
“Permanent and Diffuse Revolution”
The Politics of Dignity
Ethics and Authenticity: Assuming One’s Condition
The Secret Garden
6. Living in Arcadie
A Spiritual Family
Finding Arcadie
Arriving at Arcadie
The Provincial Desert
Building a Library I
Building a Library II
The Club
“La Bonne Parole” I: Preaching the Arcadian Life
“La Bonne Parole” II: Living the Arcadian Life
Part Three. Arcadie Contested, 1968–1982
7. The Deluge, 1968–1972
Sexual Revolutions
1968: The Revolution and Sex
Monks in the Dark Ages?
“Homosexuality, This Painful Problem”
The Rise and Fall of FHAR
The “Toads of Arcadie”
8. The Arcadie Years, 1973–1978
Recognition at Last
The “Arcadian People”
Competitors I: The Sex Explosion
Competitors II: The Political Explosion
The Giscardian Moment
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