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paul robinson

Paul Robinson

Richard W. Lyman Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus

E-mail: paulr@stanford.edu

Full Contact Information

At Stanford Since 1967

Ph.D., Harvard University, 1968; B.A., Yale University, 1962

Research Interests

Broadly speaking, I work on the history of European (and sometimes American) thought in the 19th and 20th centuries. My writing has focused on three topics. The first is the history of psychoanalysis. The second is the history of ideas about human sexuality, especially the experience of gays and lesbians. The third is the connection between intellectual history and the history of opera.

Courses Taught

Lecture Courses

  • History 136A: European Thought and Culture in the 19th Century: From Romanticism to Modernism
  • History 136B: European Thought and Culture in the 20th Century: From Freud to Foucault

Undergraduate Colloquia

  • History 36N: Gay Autobiography
  • History 238A: Autobiography
  • History 238B: Darwin, Marx, and Freud

Publications

  • The Freudian Left: Wilhelm Reich, Geza Roheim, Herbert Marcuse (1969)
  • The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson (1976)
  • Opera and Ideas: From Mozart to Strauss (1985)
  • Freud and His Critics (1993)
  • Ludwig van Beethoven: 'Fidelio' (1996)
  • Gay Lives: Homosexual Autobiography from John Addington Symonds to Paul Monette (1999)
  • Opera, Sex, and Other Vital Matters (2002)
  • Queer Wars: The New Gay Right and Its Critics (2005)

Reviews

  • Getting Personal: An intellectual historian 'dives for the genitals,' by Diane Manuel, Stanford Magazine, July-August 1999.

Awards

  • Deans Award for Excellence in Teaching
  • Dinkelspiel Award for Outstanding Service to Undergraduate Education
  • Guggenheim Fellow

Professional Affiliations

  • Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
  • Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences