Frederickson, Kathleen (Author)
It is paradoxical that instinct became a central term for late Victorian sexual sciences as they were elaborated in the medicalized spaces of confession and introspection, given that instinct had long been defined in its opposition to self-conscious thought. The Ploy of Instinct ties this paradox to instinct’s deployment in conceptualizing governmentality. Instinct’s domain, Frederickson argues, extended well beyond the women, workers, and “savages” to whom it was so often ascribed. The concept of instinct helped to gloss over contradictions in British liberal ideology made palpable as turn-of-the-century writers grappled with the legacy of Enlightenment humanism. For elite European men, instinct became both an agent of “progress” and a force that, in contrast to desire, offered a plenitude in answer to the alienation of self-consciousness. This shift in instinct’s appeal to privileged European men modified the governmentality of empire, labor, and gender. The book traces these changes through parliamentary papers, pornographic fiction, accounts of Aboriginal Australians, suffragette memoirs, and scientific texts in evolutionary theory, sexology, and early psychoanalysis.
...MoreReview Claire Furlong (2016) Review of "The Ploy of Instinct: Victorian Sciences of Nature and Sexuality in Liberal Governance". Social History of Medicine (pp. 182-183).
Review Jana Funke (2016) Review of "The Ploy of Instinct: Victorian Sciences of Nature and Sexuality in Liberal Governance". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 647-648).
Book
Giovanni Cipriani;
(2020)
La cultura medica e chimico-farmaceutica, di lingua francese e di lingua inglese e la sua diffusione in Italia, fra la metà del Settecento e l'inizio dell'Ottocento
(/isis/citation/CBB843431224/)
Book
Lis, Catharina;
Soly, Hugo;
(2012)
Worthy Efforts: Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-industrial Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB001550360/)
Article
Thomas, Marion;
(2014)
Are Women Naturally Devoted Mothers? Fabre, Perrier, and Giard on Maternal Instinct in France under the Third Republic
(/isis/citation/CBB001420019/)
Book
Israel, Jonathan Irvine;
(2001)
Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750
(/isis/citation/CBB000102108/)
Chapter
Lafuente, Antonio;
López-Ocón, Leoncio;
(2006)
Scientific Traditions and Enlightenment Expeditions in Eighteenth-Century Hispanic America
(/isis/citation/CBB000771771/)
Book
Baker, Christopher Paul;
(2002)
Absolutism and the Scientific Revolution, 1600-1720: A Biographical Dictionary
(/isis/citation/CBB000301501/)
Chapter
Paolo Casini;
(2015)
Il 'moto delle scienze' tra l'Italia e l'Europa
(/isis/citation/CBB096149722/)
Chapter
Ugo Baldini;
(2015)
Luoghi e istituzioni di ricerca
(/isis/citation/CBB552219592/)
Book
Gianpiero Sironi;
Alberto Conte;
Gian Antonio Danieli;
(2015)
Il sapere scientifico in Italia nel secolo dei Lumi
(/isis/citation/CBB654790405/)
Chapter
Luca Ciancio;
(2010)
Scienze della vita e scienze della terra nella più recente storiografia italiana della scienza: espansione o ripiegamento?
(/isis/citation/CBB097119814/)
Book
Alberto Postigliola;
Anna Maria Rao;
(2010)
Il Settecento negli studi italiani. Problemi e prospettive
(/isis/citation/CBB984151963/)
Chapter
Marta Cavazza;
(2015)
La scienza al femminile
(/isis/citation/CBB108003953/)
Chapter
Paolo Casini;
(2010)
La storiografia della scienza: considerazioni preliminari
(/isis/citation/CBB688420785/)
Thesis
Goodfellow, Sarah;
(2004)
“The Sexual Hush”: Representations of Late-Life Sexuality in Western Europe and America, 1870--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001561921/)
Article
Lois P Rudnick;
Alison M Heru;
(2017)
The ‘secret’ source of ‘female hysteria’: the role that syphilis played in the construction of female sexuality and psychoanalysis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
(/isis/citation/CBB726473206/)
Article
Cryle, Peter;
Downing, Lisa;
(2009)
Feminine Sexual Pathologies
(/isis/citation/CBB001030574/)
Book
Fors, Hjalmar;
(2015)
The Limits of Matter: Chemistry, Mining, and Enlightenment
(/isis/citation/CBB001510055/)
Chapter
Giovanni Silvano;
(2020)
La macchina del soccorso nella Francia rivoluzionaria. Verso la laicizzazione della cura
(/isis/citation/CBB233265226/)
Book
Mayhew, Robert J.;
(2000)
Enlightenment Geography: The Political Language of British Geography, 1650--1850
(/isis/citation/CBB000358334/)
Book
Heike Bauer;
(2015)
Sexology and Translation: Cultural and Scientific Encounters across the Modern World
(/isis/citation/CBB614048749/)
Be the first to comment!