Books in the "The Body, Gender and Culture" series

The essays in this collection explore representations of and responses to sexual violence over the course of the long eighteenth century. Contributors examine the underlying ideologies that spawned these representations, confronting the social, political, legal and aesthetic conditions of the day.

Using a wide range of contemporary sources, Lewis presents a nuanced study into the changing nature of infanticide in Germany over three centuries. Infanticide and abortion were complex crimes with a variety of causes, perpetrators and punishments. These crimes and the reaction to them are placed in the wider context of the of the period.

Paracelsus has been called the father of modern chemistry and is legendary for his treatment of syphilis. This work argues that Paracelsus developed an understanding of the body as composed of two distinct sexes, revolutionizing early modern conceptions of the female body as an inversion of or flawed approximation of the male body.

Epidemics, migration and territorial losses led to population decline in early nineteenth-century Turkey. In response, Ottoman elites began a programme of population growth. Balsoy uses previously untapped archival sources to examine these developments, arguing that these changes caused reproduction to become a political experience.

This book fills a significant gap in the literature on eighteenth-century social and cultural history. Starting with their production and trade, Sorge-English looks at the intricacies of the staymaker's craft, the role of gender in the design and manufacture of stays and the changing shape of stays over time.

Madame Necker occupies a unique position in French social and cultural history. This study breaks new ground by examining the profoundly corporeal nature of Madame Necker's life - her debilitating, decades-long psychic and somatic suffering and subsequent curious death.

Based on close readings of both public and private documents - court records, churchwarden accounts, depositions, diaries, letters and pamphlets - this collection of essays presents the largely untold story of non-elite women and their dealings with the law.

Royer examines the changing ritual of execution across five centuries and discovers a shift both in practice and in the message that was sent to the population at large. She argues that what began as a show of retribution and revenge became a ceremonial portrayal of redemption as the political, religious and cultural landscape of England evolved.

Yallop looks at how people in eighteenth-century England understood and dealt with growing older. Though no word for 'aging' existed at this time, a person's age was a significant aspect of their identity.

Examines the political worldview of courtly and royal women in India during the late colonial and post-Independence period. This book offers a history of the zenana, which served as the 'women's courts' or 'female quarters of the palace', where women lived behind pardah in seclusion.

Blake's combination of verse and design invites interdisciplinary study. The essays in this collection approach his work from a variety of perspectives including masculinity, performance, plant biology, empire, politics and sexuality.

This is the first historical study of indigenous Australian masculinity. Using the reactions of eighteenth-century western explorers to Aboriginal men, Konishi argues that these encounters were not as negative as has been thought.

Attwood examines Victorian attitudes to prostitution across a number of sources: medical, literary, pornographic.

Hutton looks at Manchester and Oxford to provide a comparative history of anatomical study. Using the Anatomy Act as a focal point, she examines how these two cities dealt with the need for bodies over two centuries.

Early modern European thought held that men and women were essentially the same. During the seventeenth century, medical and legal arguments began to turn against this 'one-sex' model, with hermaphroditism seen as a medieval superstition. This book traces this change in Iberia in comparison to the earlier shift in thought in northern Europe.

Childhood is not only a biological age, it is also a social construct. The essays in this collection range chronologically from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, and geographically across England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. They chart the depictions of children in various media including painting, sculpture and the graphic arts.