DeVun, Leah (Author)
This essay focuses on “hermaphrodites” and the emerging profession of surgery in thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Europe. During this period, surgeons made novel claims about their authority to regulate sexual difference by surgically “correcting” errant sexual anatomies. Their theories about sex, I argue, drew upon both ancient roots and contemporary conflicts to conceptualize sexual difference in ways that influenced Western Europe for centuries thereafter. I argue that a close examination of medieval surgical texts complicates orthodox narratives in the broader history of sex and sexuality: medieval theorists approached sex in sophisticated and varied manners that belie any simple opposition of modern and premodern paradigms. In addition, because surgical treatments of hermaphrodites in the Middle Ages prefigure in many ways the treatment of atypical sex (a condition now called, controversially, intersex or disorders/differences of sex development) in the modern world, I suggest that the writings of medieval surgeons have the potential to provide new perspectives on our current debates about surgery and sexual difference.
...More
Chapter
Chiara Crisciani;
(2019)
Sensi e Ingenium in alchimia e chirurgia
(/isis/citation/CBB971142790/)
Article
Katharine Park;
(2023)
The Myth of the “One-Sex” Body
(/isis/citation/CBB629564037/)
Book
Dan Healey;
(2022)
Bolshevik Sexual Forensics: Diagnosing Disorder in the Clinic and Courtroom, 1917-1939
(/isis/citation/CBB675705188/)
Chapter
McVaugh, Michael R.;
(2009)
Historical Awareness in Medieval Surgical Treaties (12th--14th Centuries)
(/isis/citation/CBB001021748/)
Article
Chiara Crisciani;
(2018)
Death as a Destiny and the Hope of Long Life in the Latin Middle Ages
(/isis/citation/CBB657013511/)
Article
Lisa Sannicandro;
(2020)
Ippiatria e colori nell'anonima Chirurgia equorum (Albertusvorlage, XIII sec.)
(/isis/citation/CBB165665672/)
Book
Thomson, Rodney M.;
Luscombe, D. E.;
(2011)
Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts of Latin Commentaries on Aristotle in British Libraries
(/isis/citation/CBB001200491/)
Chapter
Stefano Caroti;
(2015)
La vitesse chez Burley
(/isis/citation/CBB455132976/)
Chapter
Andrea Bocchi;
(2015)
Dal "Liber abaci" ai libri d'abaco: errori, fraintendimenti, ristrutturazioni
(/isis/citation/CBB617242918/)
Book
Gorski, Richard;
(2012)
Roles of the Sea in Medieval England
(/isis/citation/CBB001421498/)
Book
Maxwell-Stuart, P. G.;
(2011)
Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings
(/isis/citation/CBB001200665/)
Article
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani;
(2018)
The Prolongation of Life and its Limits. Western Europe, XIIIth-XVIth c.
(/isis/citation/CBB843072414/)
Article
Danielle Jacquart;
(2017)
L’harmonie des parties du corps entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance
(/isis/citation/CBB257155938/)
Article
Livia Radici;
(2010)
Notizia sul Tractatus VIII de pertinentibus ad venena et animalia venenosa
(/isis/citation/CBB059903647/)
Article
DeVun, Leah;
(2008)
The Jesus Hermaphrodite: Science and Sex Difference in PremodernEurope
(/isis/citation/CBB001030606/)
Article
Irueste, Fernando Girón;
(2001)
Medicina y Ciencia en al-Andalus
(/isis/citation/CBB000102472/)
Article
Justine Isserles;
(2017)
Aderlass und Medizinische Astrologie in hebräischen Handschriften aus dem mittelalterlichen Westeuropa
(/isis/citation/CBB249360364/)
Book
Kischlat, Harald;
(2000)
Studien zur Verbreitung von Übersetzunger arabischer philosophischer Werke in Westeuropa 1150-1400: Das Zeugnis der Bibliotheken
(/isis/citation/CBB000111374/)
Book
Ricardo Córdoba de la Llave;
Rider, Javier López;
(2022)
Technical Knowledge in Europe, 1200-1500 AD
(/isis/citation/CBB601904131/)
Article
Heeffer, Albrecht;
(2014)
Epistemic Justification and Operational Symbolism
(/isis/citation/CBB001201186/)
Be the first to comment!