The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern EvidenceBy 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. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Revisiting the Classics | 29 |
Phaethousa | 71 |
Agnodice | 127 |
Agnodice in Latin and in
Selected English Translations | 227 |
| 231 | |
| 265 | |
Other editions - View all
The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence Professor Helen King Limited preview - 2013 |
The One-sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence Helen King No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
Agnodice’s story Amatus Amatus Lusitanus Anatomicae anatomy antiquity appears argued Aristotle Aristotle’s Athenian Athens Baubo beard Beecher birth Chapter childbirth classical clitoris Concerning Sex Changes context dictionary Diodorus Diodorus Siculus discussion diseases of Women dissection edition eighteenth century Elizabeth Cellier epid epidemics epitokos evidence example Fabrica female body femmes French Galen Gender genitalia genitals genre Greek Guillemeau Gynaecology hair Heraïs hermaphrodites Herophilus Heseler Hippocrates Hippocratic corpus Hippocratic treatise history of medicine husband Hyginus Ibid included inside/outside Laqueur Laqueur’s model later Latin Laurens Littré Loeb VII London male masculine medieval menstruation Mercurialis midwifery midwives Nihell notes oikouros one-sex body one-sex model organs original Paris patient penis period Phaethousa physicians practice Pytheas readers reference Renaissance role Roman Seed seventeenth-century sex change sexual simply sixteenth century Soranus sources story of Agnodice suggests Superfetation testicles true sex two-sex uterus vagina Vesalius Wits Theatre woman womb