
Generation and Degeneration
Tropes of Reproduction in Literature and History from Antiquity Through Early Modern Europe
Duke University Press
Will be published approx. on 13. March 2001
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-0-8223-2644-1 (ISBN)
Description
This distinctive collection explores the construction of genealogies-in both the biological sense of procreation and the metaphorical sense of heritage and cultural patrimony. Focusing specifically on the discourses that inform such genealogies, Generation and Degeneration moves from Greco-Roman times to the recent past to retrace generational fantasies and discords in a variety of related contexts, from the medical to the theological, and from the literary to the historical.
The discourses on reproduction, biology, degeneration, legacy, and lineage that this book broaches not only bring to the forefront concepts of sexual identity and gender politics but also show how they were culturally constructed and reconstructed through the centuries by medicine, philosophy, the visual arts, law, religion, and literature. The contributors reflect on a wide range of topics-from what makes men "manly" to the identity of Christ's father, from what kinds of erotic practices went on among women in sixteenth-century seraglios to how men's hemorrhoids can be variously labeled. Essays scrutinize stories of menstruating males and early writings on the presumed inferiority of female bodily functions. Others investigate a psychomorphology of the clitoris that challenges Freud's account of lesbianism as an infantile stage of sexual development and such topics as the geographical origins of medicine and the materialization of genealogy in the presence of Renaissance theatrical ghosts.
This collection will engage those in English, comparative, Italian, Spanish, and French studies, as well as in history, history of medicine, and ancient and early modern religious studies.Contributors. Kevin Brownlee, Marina Scordilis Brownlee, Elizabeth Clark, Valeria Finucci, Dale Martin, Gianna Pomata, Maureen Quilligan, Nancy Siraisi, Peter Stallybrass,Valerie Traub
The discourses on reproduction, biology, degeneration, legacy, and lineage that this book broaches not only bring to the forefront concepts of sexual identity and gender politics but also show how they were culturally constructed and reconstructed through the centuries by medicine, philosophy, the visual arts, law, religion, and literature. The contributors reflect on a wide range of topics-from what makes men "manly" to the identity of Christ's father, from what kinds of erotic practices went on among women in sixteenth-century seraglios to how men's hemorrhoids can be variously labeled. Essays scrutinize stories of menstruating males and early writings on the presumed inferiority of female bodily functions. Others investigate a psychomorphology of the clitoris that challenges Freud's account of lesbianism as an infantile stage of sexual development and such topics as the geographical origins of medicine and the materialization of genealogy in the presence of Renaissance theatrical ghosts.
This collection will engage those in English, comparative, Italian, Spanish, and French studies, as well as in history, history of medicine, and ancient and early modern religious studies.Contributors. Kevin Brownlee, Marina Scordilis Brownlee, Elizabeth Clark, Valeria Finucci, Dale Martin, Gianna Pomata, Maureen Quilligan, Nancy Siraisi, Peter Stallybrass,Valerie Traub
Reviews / Votes
"The glory of this collection is the way it tackles quite abstract issues corporally. It reminds the reader how fundamental is the relation between human physiology and human ideas of history."-Susan Noakes, author of Timely Reading: Between Exegesis and Interpretation "[This book's] ensemble of motifs is not simply cast in currently fashionable psychoanalytical language. It displays a wide array of critical perspectives yet a homogeneity of viewpoints and ideological bents occur through its disparate contributions. A truly unified piece of scholarship."- Giuseppe F. Mazzotta, author of The Worlds of PetrarchMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
7 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
562 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-2644-1 (9780822326441)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Valeria Finucci is Associate Professor of Italian at Duke University. She is the editor of Renaissance Transactions: Ariosto and Tasso, also published by Duke University Press and the author of The Lady Vanishes.
Kevin Brownlee is Professor of French and Italian at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Poetic Identity in Guillaume de Machau.
Kevin Brownlee is Professor of French and Italian at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Poetic Identity in Guillaume de Machau.
Content
Introduction: Genealogical Pleasures, Genealogical Disruptions / Valeria Finucci
1. Theories of Reproduction
Generation, Degeneration, Regeneration: Original Sin and the Conception of Jesus in the Polemic between Augustine and Julian of Eclanum / Elizabeth A. Clark
Maternal Imagination and Monstrous Birth: Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata / Valeria Finucci
2. Boundaries of Sex and Gender
Contradictions of Masculinity: Ascetic Inseminators and Menstruating Men in Greco-Roman Culture / Dale B. Martin
Menstruating Men: Similarity and Difference of the Sexes in Early Modern Medicine / Gianna Pomata
The Psychomorphology of the Clitoris, or The Reemergence of the Tribade in English Culture / Valerie Traub
3. Female Genealogies
Genealogies in Crisis: MarIa de Zayas in Seventeenth-Century Spain / Marina Scordilis Brownlee
Incest and Agency: The Case of Elizabeth I / Maureen Quilligan
4. The Politics of Inheritance
In Search of the Origins of Medicine: Egyptian Wisdom and Some Renaissance Physicians / Nancy G. Siraisi
The Conflicted Genealogy of Cultural Authority: Italian Responses to French Cultural Dominance in Il Tesoretto, Il Fiore, and La Commedia / Kevin Brownlee
Hauntings: The Materiality of Memory on the Renaissance Stage / Peter Stallybrass
Index
1. Theories of Reproduction
Generation, Degeneration, Regeneration: Original Sin and the Conception of Jesus in the Polemic between Augustine and Julian of Eclanum / Elizabeth A. Clark
Maternal Imagination and Monstrous Birth: Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata / Valeria Finucci
2. Boundaries of Sex and Gender
Contradictions of Masculinity: Ascetic Inseminators and Menstruating Men in Greco-Roman Culture / Dale B. Martin
Menstruating Men: Similarity and Difference of the Sexes in Early Modern Medicine / Gianna Pomata
The Psychomorphology of the Clitoris, or The Reemergence of the Tribade in English Culture / Valerie Traub
3. Female Genealogies
Genealogies in Crisis: MarIa de Zayas in Seventeenth-Century Spain / Marina Scordilis Brownlee
Incest and Agency: The Case of Elizabeth I / Maureen Quilligan
4. The Politics of Inheritance
In Search of the Origins of Medicine: Egyptian Wisdom and Some Renaissance Physicians / Nancy G. Siraisi
The Conflicted Genealogy of Cultural Authority: Italian Responses to French Cultural Dominance in Il Tesoretto, Il Fiore, and La Commedia / Kevin Brownlee
Hauntings: The Materiality of Memory on the Renaissance Stage / Peter Stallybrass
Index