Bellies, bowels and entrails in the eighteenth century

This collection of essays seeks to challenge the notion of the supremacy of the brain as the key organ of the Enlightenment, by focusing on the workings of the bowels and viscera that so obsessed writers and thinkers during the long eighteenth-century. These inner organs and the digestive process ac...

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Bibliographic Details
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: [Place of publication not identified] MANCHESTER UNIV Press 2018, 2018
Series:Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: JSTOR Books - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:This collection of essays seeks to challenge the notion of the supremacy of the brain as the key organ of the Enlightenment, by focusing on the workings of the bowels and viscera that so obsessed writers and thinkers during the long eighteenth-century. These inner organs and the digestive process acted as counterpoints to politeness and other modes of refined sociability, drawing attention to the deeper workings of the self. Moving beyond recent studies of luxury and conspicuous consumption, where dysfunctional bowels have been represented as a symptom of excess, this book seeks to explore other manifestations of the visceral and to explain how the bowels played a crucial part in eighteenth-century emotions and perceptions of the self. The collection offers an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective on entrails and digestion by addressing urban history, visual studies, literature, medical history, religious history, and material culture in England, France, and Germany
Physical Description:1 online resource
ISBN:1526127075
1526127067
9781526127075
9781526127068