Introduction

This chapter provides a glimpse into contemporary English-language lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer, including questioning, (LGBTQ+) fiction for/ about youth in India. The study of LGBTQ+ representatives in ‘best’ book lists for/ about youth in India and other sources analysed in this chapter presented a dismally limited collection containing very few works on LGBTQ+ and other non-conforming gender representations. Walter Dean Myers’ (2014) powerful opinion piece in response to a study by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin finding merely 93 children's books about black people out of 3,200 published, primarily in the U.S., in 2013 reflects similar poignancy.

The dataset for the present study included titles that were retrieved by focusing specifically on young readers in India, such as by looking for Best Young Adult Fiction in India from the search engine available on goodreads.com (2018); reading articles such as ‘Food for Thought: What's Young India Reading, And Why?’ (Hazra 2013) in the Hindustan Times, the third most widely read daily English-language newspaper in India with a circulation of 993,645 copies January–July 2017 (Audit Bureau of Circulations 2017); and exploring ‘must’ reads for an average Indian teenager from Quora.com (Agarwal 2017); amongst others. A similar trend of limited inclusion of pertinent content was documented in works available on websites of Indian publishers such as Children's Book Trust (pioneer publisher of children's books in India) (2017), Amar Chitra Katha (one of India's largest selling comic book series) (2018), and others. Websites of some select Indian publishers studied in this research project are listed in Table 1. This chapter focuses on fiction works available in English for/ about LGBTQ+ youth in India and it showcases select examples, though implications are also relevant for non-English literature in the other 22 official languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India (Pandharipande 1997; Sarangi 2010). Based on analysis conducted for this chapter, it turns out that sadly none of these select books written originally in English were translated to and available in other non-English Indian languages (see more commentary in the Findings and Discussion sections).

Introduction

To read Law, Society, and Industrial Justice today is to step back into a world of apparently limitless optimism: the world of New Deal America, Wagner Act collectivism, and corporations with a conscience. Selznick's main theme is law and social progress, observed in the particular context of organizations that are in the process, we are told, of becoming civilized. In both the public and the private sectors, organizations are tending of themselves toward bureaucratic, rule-bound forms of management that will leave them ripe for development into sites of industrial democracy and industrial citizenship, provided only that trade unions give them a final push in the right direction. While there are strong echoes of structural functionalism in the mode of analysis, there is consideration, too, of questions of agency and of politics. This is postwar American sociology at its best.

Viewed in the light of what has happened since— the shareholder value revolution of the 1980s and the subsequent fissuring and fracturing of postwar systems of labor law and industrial relations— Selznick's optimism may appear not only limitless but also misplaced. Working relations today are increasingly casualized and precarious; trade unions have been side-lined; new methods of production can obviate the need for employers to treat their workforces well in order to ensure their loyalty and committed engagement with the tasks assigned to them. Especially in the wake of Covid-19 and the mass move to working from home that it has occasioned, there are, for a growing number of workers, no employing organizations in the physical sense assumed by Selznick: places where workers meet with coworkers and managers on a daily basis. In such circumstances, the prospects for a reconstruction of industrial justice, of dignity for workers and postindustrial democracy, appear bleak indeed. Can anything be learned or retained from Selznick's study, or is it by now a work of historical curiosity only?

In the first part of this chapter, we offer an extended discussion of Law, Society, and Industrial Justice, focusing on Selznick's vision of industrial justice and industrial citizenship and on his discussion of social and legal change.

By the end of Volume 1, Gretsch already has recorded his entry into France and mentions having been there for some time. With the first part of Volume 2, he begins his in-depth exploration of important French historical sites as he moves through Paris and other cities like Versailles, Fontainebleau, Blois, Orleans, Reims, Chalons, Verdun, Metz, and Strasbourg. These visits keep him busy until Letter XXV, in which he describes finally leaving France to enter the German Confederation. Thereafter, the narrative follows Gretsch through Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Potsdam, Berlin, Pillnitz, Tharandt, and finally Dresden and its environs. At each stop along his route, he pauses to visit the theatre, to see the local sights, and to enjoy the local culture as his whims decree. These sections of Gretsch's narrative are particularly interesting for the contrast that Gretsch draws between Russians and the French (and Britons, briefly). Additionally, Gretsch reveals more about himself and his own ideals in his staunch defense of Russia any time that he hears his own country disparaged, and he is delighted to meet several important literary and political figures.

Contrasting the French with Britons and Russians

Before concluding Volume 1, Gretsch records his entry into France, and it quickly becomes evident that his opinion of the French is considerably more negative than that of the British. This impression stays with him throughout his time in France so that when he finally crosses the Rhine at Strasbourg, he breathes a sigh of relief on entering German territory.

Gretsch's first impressions of France are colored especially by the contrast with England that he notices after crossing the English Channel. In Letter XV at the end of Volume 1, he cautions later travelers not to enter France from England if they want to save themselves from disagreeable impressions. While England is clean and neat, the villages in France constitute a striking and unpleasant contrast by being extremely dirty and smelling badly.

In the same letter, Gretsch calls the French “bold, smart, funny,” and says they could accomplish a great deal if they were not quite so fickle. This comment about fickleness probably is a not-so-subtle criticism of the French for their revolutionary activity in recent decades, especially the July Revolution of 1830.

In all European countries and in other parts of the world inhabited by Europeans, Sunday, devoted to church services in the morning, is the day of rest and recreation. It is not so in England: here, this day is the most boring and monotonous. Englishmen are devout people, strict in observing the rules and ordinances of the Christian Church, and many benefits derive from this noble quality, both in the public life of the country and in the private lives of its citizens, but this puritanical, Old Testament observance of the commandment about the sanctity of Sundays, in my opinion, is taken to the extreme. On Sundays, all the shops, all the workshops in England, close down (so that it is not even possible to buy fresh bread), all public and private entertainments cease for the entire day; one cannot see people dancing; one cannot hear music playing. Don't think that it all happens because of some imposed regulation or under the supervision of the police! The public have become so used to this custom that they would not tolerate any violation, and they would break the windows of the first house from which they could hear the sounds of music on a Sunday. But excessive strictness inevitably entails the breaking of the rule. Decent people spend their Sundays reading, conversing, and going for rides. Long rows of carriages filled with yearning figures, endless processions of horsemen drag along in silence through Hyde-Park. The common folks spend their evening in drunkenness and debauchery. Would it not be better for them to sing, dance, or see the affectations of Punchinello—than to spoil health and shorten life by thick beer and deleterious vodka! — English craftsmen revel the day before, on Saturday: on that day (payday) they get their salary, and, instead of the usual twelve hours, work only nine.

To a foreigner in London, the only way to prevent dying of boredom on Sundays—is to go for a ride somewhere out of town.

Introduction: Democratic Ideals and Institutional Failure

While I was writing my doctoral thesis at the University of Leeds in the 1960s on the decline of the Methodist Church, I used Philip Selznick's account of grassroots organizations to understand political conflicts within the church. I have in more recent years become interested in the idea of successful societies primarily through my longstanding interest in what I call “social citizenship” as the real foundation of a political democracy. Perhaps this idea is too simple to provide an explanation why whole societies fail, and so it may be more appropriate to look at specific institutions such as churches, trade unions, or football clubs as the focus of research. Alongside this idea of successful societies, I also became interested in the idea of happiness. Perhaps like “social success,” the notion of happiness is either too grand or too complex to act as a useful idea in mainstream sociology. Happiness has in modern times been downgraded often to mean little more than personal “satisfaction.” In any case, happiness as a concept has a long history that we can start with the Greek notion of eudaimonia that, for Aristotle, was based on the virtuous life. In contemporary politics and political theory, it is inevitably connected to utilitarianism and consequentialism. Insofar as Selznick was a pragmatist, we could also regard him as a consequentialist. I treat early utilitarianism as a version of consequentialism. Of course, Jeremy Bentham's “felicific calculus,” or the pain–pleasure principle, has been heavily criticized, and therefore a more usable idea may be “well-being” as a concept for capturing the welfare of individuals and as the basic goal of social policy. By combining “democratic citizenship” and happiness or well-being, we may start to get somewhere toward giving the sociology of successful societies more adequate foundations (Stones and Turner 2020). While to my knowledge Selznick did not write explicitly about happiness, he certainly addressed the question of the success or failure of democratic ideals, and he regularly talked about human “flourishing,” which underpinned his commitments to communitarianism, for example.

I have already mentioned several new acquaintances I made and old friends I visited in Dresden. I was extremely pleased to renew my friendship with Ludwig Tieck. Madame Bauer informed him in advance about my desire to see him, and he received me like an old friend. Twenty years have flown by since our first meeting in a Parisian diligence. He has aged noticeably, become stooped, his hair turned grey, but the noble features of his face have not changed; the flame of his charming eyes has not extinguished. He is now sixty-four years old. I had to tell him about the events of my life, about my literary works. I did not need to ask him about his life: I had read all of his compositions with great pleasure and spoke with him about some of them. Ludwig Tieck was subjected to persecutions and slander from the writers comprising the so-called Young Germany for his devotion to the monarchic form of government, for his scorn of ridiculous liberals, and for his vociferous censure of their destructive ideas. These were enough reasons to reproach and ostracize him! He lives very quietly, works as a dramatist at the Dresden Theatre, which brings a small salary, and supplements his earnings with the money received for his literary works, but this sum is very insignificant. The king of Bavaria awarded him an order and also honored him by decorating one chamber in the royal palace in Munich with frescos, the themes of which were taken from the works of Tieck. Two days later, Tieck invited me to a literary soirée. Tieck's literary evenings are famous across Germany for his readings. No one else can read dramatic works with such truth, with such feeling. That evening at Tieck’s, there were about fifteen guests—actors, travelers, ladies. He read a tragedy written by his unfortunate friend Kleist: The Prince of Homburg. Indeed, I have never heard such natural, expressive, distinctive reading in my life. He did not name the characters, but distinguished them with his voice and tone. The enchantment was so complete that several days later, it seemed to me that I had actually seen this play performed on the stage; I just could not remember on which particular day or in which theatre.

Introduction

With the publication of Julie Anne Peters's Luna in 2004, the existence of trans young adults was acknowledged in young adult (YA) literature in the English-speaking world. Despite reports saying that the number of YA books featuring trans characters is still rather low and that many titles are published by small presses that have little or no marketing, the presence of trans teenagers in English-language YA has been growing ever since (Bittner et al. 2016, 948; Sokoll 2013, 23). In German-language YA, the idea of the trans teenage protagonist does not seem to have caught on to the same extent. While several novels, such as Luna or Alex Gino's George (2015), have been translated into German, original German-language trans YA is rare. Noteworthy titles include Karen-Susan Fessel's YA novel Jenny mit O (Jenny with an O, 2005), a novel about a trans boy, assigned female at birth, who runs away from home; Lilly Axster's Atalanta Läufer_ in (Atalanta Runner, 2014) about a teenage runner who questions and transcends traditional gender classification; and Christine Fehér's Weil ich so bin (Because That's the Way I Am, 2016), a story about an intersex teenager struggling with their ambiguous gender expression.

The reason for the lack of attention to the topic of trans teenagers in Germanlanguage YA is difficult to pin down, but may be attributed to the fact that awareness of the existence and needs of trans people in Germany and Austria, where the aforementioned novels were published , has only been raised in recent years in these countries. It is still a challenge to find reliable figures regarding the number of trans people in Germany or Austria, but what can be evaluated is the current legal and policy situation. In its 2018 Rainbow Europe Map and Index, the NGO ILGA-Europe (the European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) lists Germany with a score of 59 per cent and Austria with a score of 56 per cent when assessing the LGBTI equality laws and policies of 49 European countries (100 per cent meaning full equality).

“What do you like most of all in Paris?” many people asked me. “It's hard to choose!” I answered: “First of all, the exciting flow of a million of the most boisterous people in the world; second, new ideas in the sciences, philology and fine arts—lectures, picture galleries, theatres; third, the comforts of life—for example, good and inexpensive meals, the ease of travel; fourth, conversations with intelligent and famous people; fifth, the pleasures of Parisian society, or, the so-called, salons.” Let's discuss the latter.

Since ancient times, salons have played an important role, not only in the history of Paris, but also in the history of France, and they influenced the way of thinking, customs, and events in the educated world. So what is a salon? It is a gathering of men and women, similar in education, language, desire to please, to amuse, to shine, but differing in taste, degree of intellect, and philosophical and political views. Usually, a hostess presided over a salon; she combined intellect and upbringing with courtesy, amiability, indulgence, and the talent for talking with any guest. Depending on the character and political status of the hostess, her salon was either a political club, an academy of literature and arts, or just a gathering of educated and courteous people. Such were the salons of Mesdames Geoffrin, du Deffand, the Duchess of Choiseul, the Duchess of Polignac (where the Queen Maria Antonia would find a pleasant conversation), of Madame Necker and her daughter, Madame de Staël, Madame Genlis, Josephine Bonaparte, Madame Tallien, Prince Talleyrand, Madame Recamier, and others. The salons flourished before the revolution. Elegant taste, noble manners, sophisticated urbanity, unconstrained gaiety, and the age-old inherent intellect of French society constituted their charm. Now, all of that has disappeared. The storms of revolutions, the consequences of continuous wars, the obduracy of political parties, dispelled the gaiety, amiability, and nobility of manners and tone from French gatherings. The Duchess d’Abrantes—a woman who saw the former society in her youth, later witnessed the magnificent amusements of Napoleon's Court, and at present is trying in vain to revive the Parisian salon of the eighteenth century—says this about salons:

Some formalities were necessary for the trip to Fontainebleau: admission into the palace requires a special pass (see Figure 2.4, Palace of Fontainebleau). On my friends’ advice, I appealed directly to the royal secretary, Baron Fain, with a note, and on the same day, received a pass to enter into the palace and gardens of Fontainebleau, signed by the royal intendant, Count Bondy. Madame Conrad, with her son, took advantage of the opportunity to see this site, famous in so many respects. We decided to travel, not by omnibus, but by regular diligence and purchased three seats in the front cabriolet, or coupe. The road to Fontainebleau is not interesting. We drove through Villejuif, Fromenteau, Essonne, Ponthierry, Chailly—what vibrant-sounding names! Just like from vaudevilles performed in the Mikhailovsky Theatre, but how pathetic these little towns in the vicinity look! They are cold, dull, dead. Paris devours everything. Before reaching Fontainebleau, we enter the local forest in which French kings, from Francis I to Charles X, would go hunting. I believe that even Napoleon went hunting here, but rarely: he liked to hunt game of a different kind. The locale of this forest was, very likely, the site of some powerful natural cataclysm several centuries ago: masses of granite are scattered through the forest. A large portion of the raw material for paving roads in Paris is mined from this area.— On the way to Fontainebleau, I did not have such talkative and obliging commentators as on the way to Versailles: we relied only on the printed sources with which we had provided ourselves for the trip. The following is what I found in the books about the history of the palace. Fontainebleau is the oldest of all the royal palaces in France. Its chapel was sanctified in 1169. Louis IX (Saint Louis) often would reside in Fontainebleau for extended periods of time.5 He called that palace—amidst forests—his desert. Back then, the Palace of Fontainebleau was a gloomy castle surrounded by a moat, with towers in the corners, and it looked like a Medieval dungeon. Francis I renovated the palace and decorated it with the finest works of Renaissance art. Emperor Charles V visited Fontainebleau in 1539.

Introduction

There is a substantial literature today on the intersection of organizations, institutions, and law. The bulk of this literature falls into the school of thought known as the “new institutionalism” (or “neoinstitutionalism”), which came into play in the sociology of organizations in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Meyer and Rowan 1977; DiMaggio and Powell 1983). This literature has paid surprisingly little attention to an earlier version of institutionalism, often referred to as the “old institutionalism,” which is mostly associated with the work of Philip Selznick. This chapter reconsiders the sociological significance of the old institutionalism, focusing in particular on Selznick's Law, Society, and Industrial Justice (1969). More than half a century after its original publication, this work remains important for how it conceptualizes law, for how it conceptualizes organizations, and for the theory Selznick offers regarding the moral evolution of organizations as they become “institutions,” or living entities infused with values. I explore the place of Law, Society, and Industrial Justice in the sociology of law and the sociology of organizations, consider its argument in light of subsequent developments in the new institutionalism, and finally argue that it is time for a rapprochement between the old and new institutionalisms in the study of organizations, institutions, and law.

Law, Society, and Industrial Justice, parts of which were coauthored by Philippe Nonet and Howard Vollmer, was first published in 1969 by the Russell Sage Foundation and was reissued in 1980 by Transaction Books and again in 2020 by Quid Pro Books. In his distinctive style, Selznick combines both sociological and jurisprudential insights, calling our attention to the importance of understanding the evolution of public legal norms and ideals in private organizational governance. As the first comprehensive examination of the relationship between law and organizations and, perhaps more importantly, of how law operates within organizations, this study addresses complex issues of governance in organizations using a rich blend of history, sociology, politics, management theory, and jurisprudence. Written about a decade before the new institutionalism emerged as a dominant approach to law and organizations, it provides an important complement, showing us how norms and ideals can develop within organizations as well as at the broader organizational field level that is the focus of much contemporary scholarship.

It's hard to imagine a town more correct and original than Karlsruhe! In the center is the duke's palace from which radii run in all directions. One half of a circle circumscribed around the center is occupied by the town, in which these radii, intersected by straight lines, form the streets; in the other half is a park in which the alleys are arranged in exactly the same way. On one square in the center of the town, on a straight line from the palace, stands a pyramid in which Margrave Charles, the founder of this town, lies buried. Before the beginning of the 18th century, this area was covered by a dense forest where Margrave Charles would go to hunt. He fell asleep on that very place one evening (1715), exhausted from chasing a wild boar. Upon awakening at sunrise, he was fascinated by the charming site and ordered a town to be founded there. No sooner said than done! It is a pity, however, that the prophetic dream that he should found a city had not befallen the Margrave closer to the Rhine. Karlsruhe lies in a waterless valley and suffers greatly as a result. Had there been no residence of the Grand Duke in it, the area would have fallen into desolation a long time ago. The lack of a water supply results in a high cost for the basic necessities of life. Heat waves here can be intolerable. Residents give travelers directions without naming streets. They say, “This house is three, four, blocks from here.” The city is like a chess board, on which pawns and bishops can move freely, but rooks would be trapped.

Having arrived in Karlsruhe, I stopped at the wonderful, clean Hotel zum golden Kreuz opposite the post house. German hotels, even in the most insignificant little towns, are distinguished by comfort, tidiness, and elegance. At the entrance, I was met by the main servant (Oberkellner), a steward who allots guests an apartment. A quarter of an hour later, a pretty looking young maid appeared, brought clean water in a jug and a towel, re-made the bed, and inquired if I needed anything.

Introduction

As noted in the introduction to this book, we were disappointed but not surprised to discover that there were some countries or regions where we struggled to find scholars who were willing to write about LGBTQ+ literature for young readers. The Arab world, which of course is a large and very diverse area and cannot accurately be characterized or described as just one thing, is a region where we were unable to connect with an appropriate scholar who was willing and able to write a piece for us. Multiple academics who work on Arabic literature told us that there was no LGBTQ+ literature for children there, or that there only existed literature that could be read queerly by a knowing reader. Unfortunately, no one agreed to explore that perspective and write that analysis for us.

We did, however, find a scholar of Arabic-language children's literature who kindly provided us with some comments on the situation in their region, which we have lightly paraphrased and edited and are publishing anonymously here, at their request. We feel that it is helpful to try to understand why such literature apparently does not yet exist there, in order to consider whether this might change in the near future. This brief introduction to LGBTQ+ issues and books for children and young adults in the Arab world is a useful overview, and we can only hope that scholars, authors and publishers in the Arabic-speaking countries will feel able to produce, and eventually critique, more work for young readers in the very near future. Here is their paraphrased commentary, which we thank them for, even if we cannot give them credit as we would have liked, because they feel it is safer to remain anonymous.

Commentary

The Arab world is comprised of 22 countries with a population of more than 350 million people. The main language is Arabic and the main religion is Islam; culture and community play a major role in the region. The importance of being part of the community, following traditions and cherishing family bonds are some of the main traits that define Arabic society.

Introduction

Research indicates that it is important for all children to see representations of themselves and their families, as well as others from diverse cultures, in the books they encounter to better understand their sociocultural world and function successfully within a culturally pluralistic society (Botelho and Rudman 2009; Johnson et al. 2017). One way this occurs is through the illustrations in children's picture books. International picture books hold great potential to cross borders and reinforce the universality of experiences. Activist, scholar and librarian Jella Lepman (1969) advocated that international children's books could build bridges of understanding and break down psychosocial barriers created by larger politicized environments.

Unfortunately, children's literature around the globe has the propensity to highlight certain cultural groups over others, often depicting families and characters as heterosexual, ignoring lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ+) families and children. Within the growing body of queer-themed children's picture books, some titles are more successful than others at conveying a loving relationship between LGBTQ+ individuals and creating a safe space to explore queer themes (Epstein 2013; Naidoo 2012; Sunderland and McGlashan 2012).

Using semiotics and visual content analyses, this chapter critically examines illustrations within a selection of foreign-language children's picture books with queer themes to determine how LGBTQ+ families and characters are visually represented. Specifically, we focus on how same-sex couples (male-male or female-female) are illustrated and note any discernible differences or similarities across books from different countries. We also examine the overarching messages that children receive from the images in these books. The study provides insight into how books from specific countries depict physical contact between same-sex individuals and couples. While our sample of titles provides an opportunity to comparatively examine queer international children's books, it should be expressly understood that the low number of books prevents the study from being statistically generalizable to the larger body of this literature.

Previous Research

In 2011 and later in 2012, Jane Sunderland and Mark McGlashan published one of the first research studies in English critically examining how same-sex mums and same-sex dads were represented in the illustrations of English-language children's picture books.

What did I want to see most of all in France? The people who were playing important roles in the new era—primarily ministers, orators, men of letters. I satisfied this desire partially. Why partially? First of all, because many of the most interesting people were not in Paris during that season; they left the city for their suburban houses and villages; second, because I was afraid of being disappointed. It is better to leave the portrait of an intelligent person in the twilight of our imagination rather than shine the harsh light of reality on him and discover an ordinary face instead of an intelligent one, an unbearable grimace of arrogance and self-confidence instead of a pleasant smile, and hear a flat statement instead of a witty word!

In my previous letter, I named several important public figures I was fortunate enough to see in Paris. One of them is the President of the Chamber of Peers, Pasquier, a tall, lean man, with a clever, calm face. He is considered one of the most capable statesmen: even Talleyrand acknowledges his merit. Once Pasquier did not come to the meeting of a certain committee and sent someone to announce that he was ill.— “This is very strange,” said chairman Talleyrand; “I do not see any reason for him to be ill today!”— The President of the Council of Ministers, Count Mole has a noble, interesting physiognomy. He is pale, silent, and sad-looking. It is very difficult at present to retain a position in the French ministry. It is a sea full of monsters and reptiles hiding behind the rocks.— Laffitte, the millionaire Laffitte who sacrificed his own property in order to become prime minister, is quite an important figure in present-day French history. I saw him in the Chamber of Deputies. His face is handsome and clever, but even in his eyes, one can see the despondency of disappointment. Recently, he resumed his banking business, and he was clever to do so. It is much better to have to deal with chervontsy, guineas, and Louis d’or than with obstinate and rebellious people.