Two Recent Books on Gender and Violence in the Early Modern Period
1. Jennifer Feather and Catherine E. Thomas, eds., Violent Masculinities: Male Aggression in Early Modern Texts and Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). As the blurb has it, "During the early modern period in England, social expectations for men came under extreme pressure; the armed knight went into decline and humanism appeared. Here, original ess…
Masochism in Political Behaviour
A few months ago I commented on Jeremy Carrette's essay, 'Intense Exchange: Sadomasochism, Theology and the Politics of Late Capitalism', expressing frustration at the way in which the author speaks of the need to 'free our gendered bodies from the market of global exploitation', but refuses to commit himself to identifying sadomasochism either as …
The Sufferings of the Martyrs and the Transgressive Female Gaze
Sharon Howard, 'Imagining the Pain and Peril of Seventeenth Century Childbirth: Travail and Deliverance in the Making of an Early Modern World', Social History of Medicine, 16:3 (2003), pp. 367-382, is one of those articles that appeared some years ago, but which I have only just come across. (The link, by the way, is to…
On Placebos
Probably of relevance to Daniel Goldberg's comments on the history of pain (which I commented on in my last post) is Charles Rosenberg on 'The Efficacy of Placebos: A Historian’s Perspective' (Harvard, May 21). Goldberg has quite a lot to say about placebos, and their place in the history of the perception of pain, and Rosenberg…
On the Treatment of Pain
My attention was caught by two recent publications in the blog of The Appendix ('a quarterly journal of experimental and narrative history'). The first is 'Interpreting “Physick”: The Familiar and Foreign Eighteenth-Century Body', by Lindsay Keiter. The second, in reply to the former, is Daniel S. Goldberg on 'The History of Pain' [UPDATE: Goldberg…
Catching Up…
The last couple of months have been pretty hectic and I haven't had much time to post here, so let me give a brief rundown of recent developments. First, let me start with the stuff I'm missing out on, being here in Japan. I was sorry to miss a roundtable discussion on Violence, Victimhood and…
Review of Pain. Pleasure and Perversity
Check out Jan Frans van Dijkhuisen's review of Pain, Pleasure and Perversity here: You'll need a JSTOR log-in to read the whole thing, but if anyone without one is particularly keen to read it, just e-mail me and I may be able to sort you out! Anyway, here's the first paragraph, just to give you…
Surgical Implements
A couple of weeks ago I posted in answer to a question on Quora about whether there was such a thing as necessary suffering. I began by saying that in an age before anaesthetics this question could hardly even have been asked. I then went on, in my wonted fashion, to discuss the issue in…
Disturbingly erotic…or not?
I posted this a few months ago, but I'm having some trouble with spambots on a few of my posts, so I'm republishing with a slightly different permalink to see if that resolves the problem. Apologies to those who've already seen it! An art historian is claiming that DĂĽrer’s work is deeply erotic, in…
“Necessary” suffering
I posted this on Quora, in answer to someone who wanted to know if there is such a thing as necessary suffering. To see the complete thread, click here (you'll need to create a log-in ID if you want to add comments). In an age before anaesthetics this question could hardly even have been asked.…