Seth LeJacq has successfully defended his dissertation, “Run Afoul: Sodomy, Masculinity, and the Body in the Georgian Royal Navy.” Seth’s dissertation deals with the history of the homoerotic, male-male sexual contact, and formal repression of sodomy in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Royal Navy, focusing in particular on the Napoleonic period. It asks how and why different actors recognized certain activities as “sodomy” and explores the place of the homoerotic in working-class naval culture. It also investigates the wide range of sites–from legal discourse to the periodical press–in which Britons engaged discursively with naval sodomy. Congratuations, Dr. LeJacq!

Seth LeJacq with his graduate advisor, Prof. Mary Fissell.