The Humanities Institute also includes scholarly exchanges, which kicked off Monday in Haldeman Hall with an informal meeting between the program's 22 fellows. These fellows will research sexology, or the scientific study of sexual behavior, as it applies to their academic disciplines, history professor and program co-director Douglas Haynes said.
"We felt that would be a useful frame for us, how understandings about Asia and Africa were central to the constitution of European sexual science," Haynes said.
The field of sexual science lacks a fully global perspective because European sexual scientists stereotype Eastern sexual traditions without sufficiently researching them.
"This is a chance for people to learn about what's going on in other parts of the world and see patterns and contrasts," Haynes said.
His hope is that the conference will allow for a conversion of activism and science in sexology.
A rather obscure topic, sexology influences everyone in America. A lot of our current popular attitudes come out of sexual science, Haynes said.
At the end of the seven-week institute, the fellows will combine the works presented to create an anthology of global information about sexology.
"This is really an institute to produce new scholarly work that will have a real impact," Fuechtner said.
Fuechtner and Haynes requested a grant for the conference after realizing they were researching similar issues. Haynes, who studies Indian history, was interested in the influence of Western ideas about sexuality and marriage.
Fuechtner was simultaneously studying a 20th century German sexologist who toured India. After reading the same books, the two decided to work together.
The pair have been preparing for the conference for three years and began advertising the fellowship about a year ago, Feuchtner said.
The two opening keynote lectures were specifically chosen to construct a framework for the institute's subsequent discussions.
"We wanted two speakers who really already think about it as a global phenomenon," Fuechtner said.
On Tuesday, Heike Bauer started off the series with a lecture on queer narratives in sex.
A senior lecturer in English literature and gender studies at the University of London, Bauer discussed physicist and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld as well as violence and suicide in queer history.
She lauded Dartmouth's efforts at funding the humanities.
"It's fantastic that the humanities are so well-funded," she said. "The humanities are very under-funded in the U.K."
The series creates an opportunity to bring together fellows from various disciplines, which Bauer said "allows for discourse on dispelling assumptions and working towards a better understanding on these topics."
Other fellows also expressed their excitement for the unique opportunity to collaborate.
Professors Kate Fisher and Jana Funke, both from the University of Exeter, gave the second presentation of the day. Their collaborative research explored the ways in which Western sexual scientists constructed modern ideas of non-Western sexual attitudes.
The fellowship group comprises 10 fellows who attend one lecture and 12 who stay for the entire program. The five fellows from Dartmouth are professors Aimee Bahng, Michael Dietrich, Susannah Heschel, Elizabeth Perez and Dennis Washburn.
Fuechtner and Haynes worked with Leslie Center's Administrator Isabel Weatherdon to organize the conference.
The program's first two lectures were titled "Towards a Global History of Sexual Science." The Humanities Institute is sponsored by the Leslie Center for the Humanities, which hosts similar programs once every two to three years.
Lindsay Ellis contributed reporting.
