King, Helen (Author)
Ashgate Publishing
Physical Details: xii + 274 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English
By far the most influential work on the history of the body, across a wide range of academic disciplines, remains that of Thomas Laqueur. This book puts on trial the one-sex/two-sex model of Laqueur's Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud through a detailed exploration of the ways in which two classical stories of sexual difference were told, retold and remade from the mid-sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Agnodike, the 'first midwife' who disguises herself as a man and then exposes herself to her potential patients, and Phaethousa, who grows a beard after her husband leaves her, are stories from the ancient world that resonated in the early modern period in particular. Tracing the reception of these tales shows how they provided continuity despite considerable change in medicine, being the common property of those on different sides of professional disputes about women's roles in both medicine and midwifery. The study reveals how different genres used these stories, changing their characters and plots, but always invoking the authority of the classics in discussions of sexual identity. The study raises important questions about the nature of medical knowledge, the relationship between texts and observation, and the understanding of sexual difference in the early modern world beyond the one-sex model.
...MoreReview Wagner, Darren N. (2015) Review of "The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 505-507).
Review Evans, Jennifer (2015) Review of "The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (pp. 464-466).
Review Santing, Catrien (2015) Review of "The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 693-695).
Review Bitomsky, Jane (2014) Review of "The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence". Health and History (pp. 153-154).
Review Read, Kirk D. (2015) Review of "The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence". Social History of Medicine (pp. 194-195).
Essay Review Rosario, Vernon A. (2014) Fustigating the “One-Sex-Body” Thesis. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 112-114).
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