The emergence of the concept of opposite sexes around 1800 in german literature, science, and nature philosophy [a 12-month NEH fellowship will enable me to complete a book, the making of the opposite…

The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a $60,000 project grant to an individual at Durham, North Carolina to complete a book analyzing the emergence of the concept of opposite sexes in German literature, science, and philosophy around 1800. The grant was awarded under the Promotion of the Humanities Fellowships and Stipends program (CFDA 45.160), which provides support for individual scholars to produce humanities scholarship including books and articles. The 12-month grant period runs from June 1, 2023 to May 31, 2024 and will enable the recipient to complete their manuscript titled "The Making of the Opposite Sex." The book will investigate how sex came to be viewed as oppositional rather than merely other as naturalists shifted focus from anatomy to physiology in the late 18th century. It will focus on developments in Germany and conclude by analyzing the resurgence of the sexual polarity model in the United States over the last 30 years.

The emergence of the concept of opposite sexes around 1800 in german literature, science, and nature philosophy [a 12-month NEH fellowship will enable me to complete a book, the making of the opposite SEX, that will investigate how SEX came to be viewed as opposite rather than merely other. As naturalists shifted focus from anatomy to physiology, this oppositional sexual dynamic emerged in science, medicine, literature, and philosophy, all fields in dialogue. In various thinkers, the polarity came to ground definitions of the organism; the workings of all life; the possibility of empirical knowledge; the existence of the objective world beyond subjective imaginings; human ethical interactions; and even an originary heterogeneity as the condition of possibility for differentiated existence as such. My book will focus on the german-speaking world in which sexual polarity emerged. IT will conclude by analyzing the resurgence of the model in the US in the last 30 years. My research will illuminate from a scholarly standpoint why the concept has proven so intertwined with social values for so long.]