This collection of original essays explores the origins of contemporary notions of race in the oceanic interculture of the Atlantic world in the early modern period. In doing so, it breaks down institutional boundaries between 'American' and 'British' literature in this early period, as well as between 'history' and 'literature'. Individual essays address the ways in which categories of 'race' - black brown, red and white, African American and Afro-Caribbean, Spanish and Jewish, English and Celtic, native American and Northern European, creole and mestizo - were constructed or adapted by...

This work looks at the West's fascination with, and misunderstanding of, castrated males. Gary Taylor takes in the sweep of Western thought on the operation, focusing on three key periods: the Early Church, one of whose Fathers, Origen, supposedly castrated himself; the Early Modern, when castration was actually depicted on stage by Thomas Middleton; and the 20th century, where, Taylor argues, Freud got it wrong.

Castration is a lively history of the meaning, function, and act of castration from its place in the early church to its secular reinvention in the Renaissance as a spiritualized form of masculinity in its 20th century position at the core of psychoanalysis.

What does it mean to be white? When and why did men buy the idea that they were "whites," and who sold it to them? The secret history of whiteness is told, for the first time, in this important book by an internationally-acclaimed cultural historian and journalist. Gary Taylor tracks the growth of modern white identity through the history of art, law, literature, science, and sexuality--and through the eyes of black and brown observers. From Columbus to George W. Bush, from Shakespeare to Eminem, from John Bunyan to George Wallace, Buying Whiteness will transform the way you read our past and...