FOR SEXUAL PERVERSION See PARAPHILIAS: Disciplining Sexual Deviance at the Library of Congress

M.A. Adler

Purpose of the Dissertation: Although sexuality scholars have widely explored the production and effects of taxonomies and knowledge, there is not yet a thorough account of the role of libraries in the construction of knowledge about sexuality. This dissertation fills a critical gap in the literature by presenting a historical account of the selection and cataloging of materials on sexual deviance at the Library of Congress, which operates at the center of scholarly discourses. The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, and occupies a critical space where medical, social science, political, literary, and other discourses are collected, arranged, and disseminated to Congress and the public. LC not only collects and arranges research from all the disciplines across the globe, but also sets the standard by which subjects are organized in libraries of all types around the world. This study will demonstrate the role of knowledge production in the construction of sexual deviance by looking to the place where these discourses are stored and categorized. It will also reveal the processes and practices by which knowledge about sexuality has been disciplined and policed at the Library of Congress.