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(Extra)ordinary bodies : othered, violated, and devoured
134 pages : illustrations (some color)
- This collection of essays addresses how the boundaries of nature were understood in the last ten centuries, from four different perspectives: the connections between life and death; the authorities' control over the body; the treatment of living and dead bodies; and the contamination of the human body by animals. The chapters focus on liminalities separating life from death, bodies from other bodies, human from animal bodies, and covered from naked body parts. They approach corporeal otherness through a wide range of sources, such as penitentials, sumptuary laws, chronicles, medical texts, collections of charms, scientific treatises, folklore, literature and iconographic evidence. The multiple bodies investigated in this book could cause fear and shame, give an appetite (at least for revenge), have healing powers, or be used as instruments for medical purposes.
- Each contribution presents (extra)ordinary situations that imply (extra)ordinary uses and conceptualisations of the body, and suggest that, in some cases, what is now understood as extraordinary was often interpreted as perfectly possible. [Publisher's text]
- Online only available
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Information
ISBN: 9791280232717
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In this volume
- Introduction : the Unnatural Nature of Nature. Bodies, Life, Death, and the Limits of Nature around Europe
- Restless bodies, wandering souls. Burchard of Worms and the porous boundary between life and death in the early eleventh century
- Italians Devour Better : Rumor and Anthropophagy in Late Medieval Sources
- «Quasi more vaccarum» : forbidden Bodies and Scandalous Clothing in the Local Legislation of Late Medieval Italy (14th and 15th century)
- In Iudeos pauca : the representation of Jews in the tradition of the De casibus virorum illustrium
- Nature, supernature and the human body : medicinal remedies and charms in late medieval Scandinavia
- Cooperation and Conflict among Humans, Lizards and Snakes in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy
- The Body as an Instrument : Human Guinea Pigs in 19th-century Experiments on Tarantism
- What Body? : investigations into Mediumship