Although ‘Unwilling to know: rethinking the history of male homosexuality in Europe (1870–1965)‘ by Wannes Dupont (from ‘Verzwegen verlangen: een geschiedenis van homoseksualiteit in België‘) is already out, the book will be presented at the University of Antwerp on Tuesday 5 May 2026. An academic book, where about half of the mages is reserved for notes and the bibliography.
A challenge to the ‘will to know’ narrative
‘Unwilling to Know. Male Homosexuality at the Crossroads of Europe, 1870–1965’ is a deeply researched and intellectually ambitious study that challenges one of the most persistent assumptions in the historiography of sexuality.
Since the 1970s, many historians have argued that modern Europe was driven by an almost insatiable “will to know” when it came to understanding and categorising male homosexuality. According to this view, the late nineteenth century marked the beginning of an era of intense scientific, legal and cultural scrutiny, with homosexuality increasingly brought into the open through medical literature, policing, and public debate.
Wannes Dupont’s book offers a powerful corrective to this narrative. Rather than accepting a uniform European trajectory, he demonstrates that this so-called “will to know” was far from universal.
Belgium as a counterexample
Focusing on Belgium as a central case study, Dupont reveals a markedly different pattern: one characterised not by curiosity and exposure, but by silence, discretion and coded communication.
In contrast to neighbouring countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom – where homosexuality became a subject of extensive scientific and public attention- Belgium remained strikingly reticent well into the twentieth century, even beyond World War II.
This divergence becomes particularly clear when looking at the production of knowledge. During the fin de siècle, hundreds, indeed more than a thousand, scientific monographs on homosexuality were published across Europe.
Belgium, however, stands out for its relative absence in this burgeoning field. This lack of academic output was mirrored by a broader societal indifference: the police, psychiatric institutions and the public at large displayed a notable lack of engagement with the subject. Rather than being actively investigated or debated, homosexuality often remained unspoken, regulated through implicit norms rather than explicit intervention.
A comparative and nuanced European perspective
Dupont situates this Belgian experience within a wider European and global framework through careful comparative analysis. By doing so, he complicates the tendency to generalise from a small number of well-documented national cases.
His work underscores how different cultural, institutional, legal and religious contexts produced distinct ways of perceiving and regulating homosexuality. In particular, the book pays close attention to the role of religion, suggesting that religious structures and sensibilities played a crucial part in shaping attitudes of silence and indirect control.
The result is a nuanced and richly layered account that exposes the diversity of European experiences. Rather than a single, linear progression towards greater visibility and knowledge, Dupont reveals a fragmented landscape in which different societies developed their own, sometimes contradictory, approaches.
An academic journey across continents
The intellectual depth of the book is matched by the personal and academic journey behind it.
As Dupont recounts in his acknowledgements, the project was years in the making and accompanied him across three continents and multiple academic environments. Beginning at the University of Antwerp, where he first embarked on his doctoral research, the work benefited from institutional support such as funding from the Research Foundation Flanders and access to crucial archival materials, including court records in Brussels. The research process itself was shaped by extensive archival work, made possible through the assistance of numerous librarians and archivists.
Following his doctorate, Dupont’s career took him to a range of international settings, each of which left its mark on the development of the book. A research stay at Yale University, supported by the Belgian American Educational Foundation, allowed him to deepen his work, while a subsequent postdoctoral fellowship enabled him to continue refining his ideas.
His move to Yale-NUS College in Singapore introduced a new intellectual environment, where he spent several formative years teaching within a liberal arts framework. Later academic engagements at Utrecht University, the Australian National University, and the Free University of Brussels further broadened his perspectives before he joined the University of Edinburgh, where he now serves as Lecturer in the History of Sexuality.
A contribution to the history of sexuality
Throughout this journey, Dupont benefited from the mentorship and support of numerous scholars and colleagues, whose intellectual influence is reflected in the book’s interdisciplinary approach. At the same time, his acknowledgements convey a strong sense of the personal relationships that sustained him—friends, family and loved ones who provided stability and encouragement amid the uncertainties of an international academic career.
In the end, ‘Unwilling to Know’ is more than a revisionist history of male homosexuality in Belgium.
It is a compelling exploration of how knowledge – or the deliberate absence of it – shapes social realities. By foregrounding silence as a historical force, Dupont opens up new ways of thinking about sexuality, power and the production of knowledge.
His work stands as a significant contribution to the fields of queer history, European history and the history of sexuality, offering both a detailed case study and a broader methodological reflection on how historians approach the past.
