Gendered Pathologies

The Female Body and Biomedical Discourse in the Nineteenth-Century English Novel

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Women Authors, Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies
Cover of the book Gendered Pathologies by Sondra Archimedes, Taylor and Francis
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Sondra Archimedes ISBN: 9781135922894
Publisher: Taylor and Francis Publication: September 8, 2005
Imprint: Routledge Language: English
Author: Sondra Archimedes
ISBN: 9781135922894
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Publication: September 8, 2005
Imprint: Routledge
Language: English

Gendered Pathologies examines nineteenth-century literary representations of the pathologized female body in relation to biomedical discourses about gender and society in Victorian England. According to medical and scientific views of the period, the woman who did not conform to the dictates of gender ideology was, biologically speaking, aberrant: a deviation from the norm. Yet, although marginalized in a social sense, the "deviant" woman was central as a literary and cultural trope. Analyzing novels by Charles Dickens, H. Rider Haggard, and Thomas Hardy alongside Foucault's notion of perverse sexualities and Herbert Spencer's model of the social organism, Archimedes argues that the pathologized female body displaces or resolves, on a narrative level, larger cultural anxieties about the health of the British as a species. While earlier feminist investigations asserted that bourgeois ideology helped to construct scientific discourses about female sexuality and social behavior, this study takes these assertions as a starting point . Examining incest, racial stereotyping, and neurasthenia, Gendered Pathologies attempts to shed light on the ways in which biological thinking permeated British culture in the second half of the nineteenth century.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Gendered Pathologies examines nineteenth-century literary representations of the pathologized female body in relation to biomedical discourses about gender and society in Victorian England. According to medical and scientific views of the period, the woman who did not conform to the dictates of gender ideology was, biologically speaking, aberrant: a deviation from the norm. Yet, although marginalized in a social sense, the "deviant" woman was central as a literary and cultural trope. Analyzing novels by Charles Dickens, H. Rider Haggard, and Thomas Hardy alongside Foucault's notion of perverse sexualities and Herbert Spencer's model of the social organism, Archimedes argues that the pathologized female body displaces or resolves, on a narrative level, larger cultural anxieties about the health of the British as a species. While earlier feminist investigations asserted that bourgeois ideology helped to construct scientific discourses about female sexuality and social behavior, this study takes these assertions as a starting point . Examining incest, racial stereotyping, and neurasthenia, Gendered Pathologies attempts to shed light on the ways in which biological thinking permeated British culture in the second half of the nineteenth century.

More books from Taylor and Francis

Cover of the book Psychoanalysis in Hong Kong by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Handbook on Educational Specialist Evaluation by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book On the Shop Floor by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Nietzsche in Context by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Advertising and Public Relations Law by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Independent Psychoanalysis Today by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Populist Political Communication in Europe by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Historical Linguistics by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Real and Financial Integration in Asia by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book A Guide to EC Environmental Law by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Social Theory and Education Research by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Meaning and Method by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Thou Shalt Not Kill Unless Otherwise Instructed: Poems and Stories by Sondra Archimedes
Cover of the book Constitutional Theory: Schmitt after Derrida by Sondra Archimedes
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy