The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture

ISBN-13: 9780521483780 / Angielski / Miękka / 1995 / 328 str.

Joan Cadden; Charles Rosenberg; Colin Jones

Opis

This book explores the ways in which scientific ideas about sex differences in the later Middle Ages participated in the broader cultural assumptions about gender. Professor Cadden discusses how medieval natural philosophical theories and medical notions about reproduction and sexual impulses and experiences intersected with ideas about such matters as the social roles of men and women, the purpose of marriage, and the road to salvation. Grounded in history, feminist theory, and cultural studies, The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages should appeal to a wide range of scholars and students.

Recenzje

"...a welcome and much-needed addition to the vast scholarship on the roles of women in the Middle Ages that has been published in recent years....This book will stimulate discussion in many fields. This historian of medieval Christianity finds Cadden's ideas wonderfully suggestive for further exploration of religious topics....Students in other fields of history will find that this erudite book opens many doors of historical imagination." E. Ann Matter, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Spis treści

Introduction; Part I. Seeds and Pleasures: The Evolution of Learned Opinions: 1. Prelude to medieval theories and debates: Greek authorities and their Latin transformations; 2. The emergence of issues and the ordering of opinions; 3. Academic questions: female and male in scholastic medicine and natural philosophy; Part II. Sex Difference and the Construction of Gender: 4. Feminine and masculine types; 5. Sterility: the pursuit of progeny and the failure of reproductive function; 6. Is sex necessary? The problem of sexual abstinence; Conclusion.