Bartels, Emily C.  "Making More of the Moor: Aaron, Othello, and Renaissance Refashionings of Race."  Shakespeare Quarterly 41 (1990): 433-54.  Reads Titus Andronicus and Othello in relationship to Renaissance discourses about Africa and argues that while Titus like this discourse constructs the potentially "too close" moor as an "other," Othello reveals--through Iago--this construction and its motives. Historicist and deconstructive in its approach, the essay is useful for suggesting how in Othello representations of "others"--blacks and women--are used to gain authority over them.

Bidduph, William.  Travels into Africa, Asia, and to the Blacke Sea. The English Experience 22.  London, 1609; facs. rpt. New York: Da Capo, 1968.  A travel account that connects foreign locations and sodomy (OED).  I haven't read this yet but plan to--it's easily accessible in a facsimile reprint--in order to connect up the racial/colonialist and sexual politics in the play.

Bray, Alan.  Homosexuality in Renaissance England.  2nd ed. London: Gay Men's Press, 1988.  An important account of homosexuality in Renaissance England.  Bray emphasizes both the conception of homosexual desire during the period as potentially common to all rather than (as now) suggesting a "homosexual" identity, and argues that the condemned category of sodomy did not usually impinge on encouraged male-male institutions and desires, so long as the relationships these produced did not go against other social codes.  The argument is Foucauldian in its assumption that patterns of sexuality change over time and in its interest in a period when an idea of a specific sexual orientation--Bray claims--does not exist.

-----."Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England."History Workshop Journal 29 (1990): 3-19.  Reprinted in Goldberg, Queering the Renaissance 40-61.  Extends the argument of his Homosexuality in Renaissance England to explore how the highly praised codes of male-male friendship and political alliance coincided with the highly condemned signs of male-male sodomy.  Bray argues that this coincidence allowed accusations of sodomy against political enemies.The essay is important as well for its suggestion that the history of sexuality should not be written apart from other histories (traditionally considered more important), such as political history.

Foucault, Michel.  History of Sexuality, Vol 1: An Introduction.  Trans.  Robert Hurley.  New York: Random House, 1978.  A highly influential book not only in the history of sexuality, but for its ideas about history, language and identity in general.  Important for my work here in its argument that the early modern period recognizes a range of acts it considers "unnatural," but no specifically homosexual identity.

Goldberg, Jonathan, ed and intro. Queering the Renaissance.Durham: Duke UP, 1994.  A good anthology of recent studies of sexuality in the Renaissance.  All of the authors agree with Goldberg that "homosexuality" in the Renaissance should not be seen in terms of a specific identity.  The authors generally explore the ways in which various discourses or relationships not previously seen as homoerotic may be read in this manner.

-----.Sodometries: Renaissance Texts, Modern Sexualities.  Stanford: Stanford UP, 1992.  A richly suggestive book that offers dense and complex readings of sexuality in a variety of literary and non-literary texts.Following Bray, the readings frequently emphasize that forms of condemned homoeroticism are the "othered" versions of "proper" male-male desire during the period.  In this sense the approach is deconstructive both in its attention to the way in which what look like opposites really inhabit one another, and in its attention to the way in which representations regulate such opposition.  The essays also follow Bray in insisting on the inseparability of studies of sexuality from studies of other spheres, such as court politics or colonialism.

Harris, Jonathan Gil. "'Narcissus in thy face': Roman Desire and the Difference it Fakes in Antony and Cleopatra."  Shakespeare Quarterly 45 (1994): 408-25.  Argues that male-female relationships in Antony and Cleopatra are stand-ins for male-male ones (419).  Relevant to my interest in the relationship between male-female and male-male relations in Othello.  But I disagree with his assumption that specifically homoerotic relationships erase the woman in the plays.  This argument conflates homosociality with homosexuality, and blames the misogyny of the former on the latter.

Loomba, Ania."Sexuality and Racial Difference.  "Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Othello.  Ed. Barthelemy, Anthony Gerard.  New York: G. K. Hall, 1994.  162-86.  A sharp consideration of how race, gender and sexuality (really heterosexuality) intersect in Othello.  Loomba's work seems particularly important for its insistence that we need to think about what it means that a black person ends up figuring (or being scapegoated for) misogyny.

Nicolay, Nicolas de.  The Navigations into Turkie.  Trans. Thomas Washington.The English Experience 48.  London, 1585; facs. rpt. New York: Da Capo, 1968.  A travel account that connects Turkey as a foreign place and sodomy (OED).  I haven't read this yet but plan to--it's easily accessible in a facsimile reprint--in order to connect up the racial/colonialist and sexual politics in the play.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky.  Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire.  New York: Columbia UP, 1985. A founding work in the study of male relationships in English literature.Sedgwick pays particular attention to the way in which bonds between two men are frequently "triangulated," that is formed in relation to a woman.Although criticized for the way the work might suggest that male-male desire requires a woman, the book powerfully shows these structures as they exist in a series of English and American literary texts.  The "triangle" structure also lets Sedgwick integrate gender and sexuality studies.The book is also useful in its attention to the way in which homosocial bonds can take both homoerotic and homophobic forms.

Stone, Lawrence.  Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800.  Abr. ed.  New York: Harper, 1979.  An important social history of early modern sexual and familiar relationships.  Argues that state formation, the growth of individualism, and the development of reformed Protestant religion, all put emphasis on the tight nuclear family of husband, wife and children, rather than the extended family characteristic of feudal culture.  An increased emphasis on the family, Stone argues, also involves imagining the relationship between husband and wife as one of mutuality, and this contradicts the other function of the family in the period, which is to serve as a means and model of social regulation through the authority of the father. 

Traub, Valerie.  Desire and Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Renaissance Drama.  London: Routledge, 1992.  Explores both homo- and heteroerotic relationships in Shakespeare's plays through the lenses of historicist criticism and psychoanalysis.  Traub critiques earlier feminist criticism for excluding homoerotic desire from its analyses.

Vanita, Ruth.  "'Proper' Men and 'Fallen' Women: The Unprotectedness of Wives in Othello.  "Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 34 (1994): 341-56.  Argues that Othello demonstrates the vulnerability of women to their husbands in the patriarchal culture of early modern England.  Sharply observes that while Cassio loses his post for illegitimate violence against Roderigo, Othello is criticized by Lodovico for hitting Desdemona, but nothing else happens.  To hit Desdemona still seems to be Othello's right.  Vanita also argues that Othello's race doesn't make him unique.In seventeenth-century drama the woman is generally threatened by men.