Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine, and Emotion

Awards:   Commended for Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award 2010. Winner of Highly Commended, Longman-History Today Book of the Year Awards 2010.
Author:   Fay Bound Alberti (Senior Research Fellow, History Department, Queen Mary University of London)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
ISBN:  

9780199606047


Pages:   240
Publication Date:   12 January 2012
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Our Price $77.95 Quantity:  
Add to Cart

Share |

Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine, and Emotion


Add your own review!

Awards

  • Commended for Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award 2010.
  • Winner of Highly Commended, Longman-History Today Book of the Year Awards 2010.

Overview

The heart is the most symbolic organ of the human body. Across cultures it is seen as the site of emotions, as well as the origin of life. We feel emotions in the heart, from the heart-stopping sensation of romantic love to the crushing sensation of despair. And yet since the nineteenth century the heart has been redefined in medical terms as a pump, an organ responsible for the circulation of the blood. Emotions have been removed from the heart as an active site of influence and towards the brain. It is the brain that is the organ most commonly associated with emotion in the modern West. So why, then, do the emotional meanings of the heart linger? Why do many transplantation patients believe that the heart, for instance, can transmit memories and emotions and why do we still refer to emotions as 'heartfelt'? We cannot answer these questions without reference to the history of the heart as both physical organ and emotional symbol. Matters of the Heart traces the ways emotions have been understood between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries as both physical entities and spiritual experiences. With reference to historical interpretations of such key concepts as gender, emotion, subjectivity and the self, it also addresses the shifting relationship from heart to brain as competing centres of emotion in the West.

Full Product Details

Author:   Fay Bound Alberti (Senior Research Fellow, History Department, Queen Mary University of London)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 13.70cm , Height: 1.30cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.298kg
ISBN:  

9780199606047


ISBN 10:   0199606048
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   12 January 2012
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Heart of the Matter: Emotion, Modernity and the Self 1: Humours to Hormones: Emotion and the Heart in History 2: Hunter's Heart: Pathological Anatomy and the Science of Disease 3: From Morbid Anatomy to New Technologies: Constructing the Heart of Disease 4: Angina Pectoris and the Arnold Family 5: 'Heart Latham' and Nineteenth-Century Medical Practice 6: The Heart of Harriet Martineau: Symptoms, Subjectivity and Self-Fashioning 7: Emotions and the Brain: Rethinking the Mind/Body Relationship Conclusion: The Matter of the Heart

Reviews

Alberti does, however, tell a fascinating story. Her account of the wider medical changes would be useful and accessible undergraduate reading, while her analysis of the mind-body relationship should be required reading for anyone working on minds, emotions, or bodies. Alberti rightly notes that historians have perpetuated the twentieth-century scientific boundaries between mind and body, meaning 'that the history of neuroscience need not be connected with the history of cardiology'. Alberti's thought-provoking study makes not only a compelling case for scholarly reintegration of the mind and body but also highlights the research riches that it provides. --Journal of British Studies


Author Information

Dr Fay Bound Alberti is a writer and cultural historian who specialises in the study of medicine, emotions and gender. She has lectured at several UK universities, and has published on many aspects of early modern medicine and culture in major journals, including the Lancet, History Workshop Journal and Isis. She has also contributed to media debates on the history of medicine, including BBC Radio 4's In our Time with Melvyn Bragg, and The Eureka Years with Adam Hart-Davis. Previous publications include Medicine, Emotion and Disease (Palgrave, 2006). Fay is currently Senior Research Fellow in History at Queen Mary University of London, and Honorary Research Associate at the Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. She is also Policy Advisor for the Arcadia Fund, a charitable trust that protects endangered treasures of nature and culture.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions
Latest Reading Guide

Aorrng

Shopping Cart
Your cart is empty
Shopping cart
Mailing List