Helen King

Immaculate Forms (eBook, ePUB)

Uncovering the History of Women's Bodies

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

'With unrivaled expertise and a wealth of classical and contemporary detail, the author weaves historical knowledge of medicine, anatomy, literature, art and religion into a narrative that surprises, informs, excites and frequently amuses' Adrian Thatcher, author of Vile Bodies

Throughout history, religious scholars, medical men and - occasionally - women themselves, have moulded thought on what 'makes' a woman. She has been called the weaker sex, the fairer sex, the purer sex, among many other monikers. Often, she has been defined simply as 'Not A Man'.

Today, we are more aware than ever of the complex relationship between our bodies and our identities. But contrary to what some may believe, what makes a woman is a question that has always been open-ended.

Immaculate Forms examines all the ways in which medicine and religion have played a gatekeeping role over women's organs. It explores how the womb was seen as both the most miraculous organ in the body and as a sewer; uncovers breasts' legacies as maternal or sexual organs - or both; probes the mystery of the disappearing hymen, and asks, did the clitoris need to be discovered at all?

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Profile
• Erscheinungstermin: 5. September 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781782836346
• Artikelnr.: 69747530

Autorenporträt

Helen King is Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at The Open University. She is a historian of medicine and the body, and has held visiting posts at Gustavus Adolphus College, MN; the Peninsula Medical School; and the universities of Vienna, Texas, Notre Dame and British Columbia. She is also an elected member of the General Synod of the Church of England, where she is vice-chair of the Gender & Sexuality Group. Since her first monograph, Hippocrates' Woman: Reading the female body in ancient Greece (1988), she has published on aspects of gynaecology and obstetrics from classical Greece to the nineteenth century.