Nothing Natural Is Shameful: Sodomy and Science in Late Medieval Europe

Author:   Joan Cadden ,  Ruth Mazo Karras
Publisher:   University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN:  

9780812245370


Pages:   336
Publication Date:   31 October 2013
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Our Price $250.67 Quantity:  
Add to Cart

Share |

Nothing Natural Is Shameful: Sodomy and Science in Late Medieval Europe


Add your own review!

Overview

In his Problemata, Aristotle provided medieval thinkers with the occasion to inquire into the natural causes of the sexual desires of men to act upon or be acted upon by other men, thus bringing human sexuality into the purview of natural philosophers, whose aim it was to explain the causes of objects and events in nature. With this philosophical justification, some late medieval intellectuals asked whether such dispositions might arise from anatomy or from the psychological processes of habit formation. As the fourteenth-century philosopher Walter Burley observed, ""Nothing natural is shameful."" The authors, scribes, and readers willing to ""contemplate base things"" never argued that they were not vile, but most did share the conviction that they could be explained. From the evidence that has survived in manuscripts of and related to the Problemata, two narratives emerge: a chronicle of the earnest attempts of medieval medical theorists and natural philosophers to understand the cause of homosexual desires and pleasures in terms of natural processes, and an ongoing debate as to whether the sciences were equipped or permitted to deal with such subjects at all. Mining hundreds of texts and deciphering commentaries, indices, abbreviations, and marginalia, Joan Cadden shows how European scholars deployed a standard set of philosophical tools and a variety of rhetorical strategies to produce scientific approaches to sodomy.

Full Product Details

Author:   Joan Cadden ,  Ruth Mazo Karras
Publisher:   University of Pennsylvania Press
Imprint:   University of Pennsylvania Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 3.30cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.640kg
ISBN:  

9780812245370


ISBN 10:   0812245377
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   31 October 2013
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

"Introduction: The Natural Philosophy of Sodomites and Their Kind Chapter 1. Moved by Nature Chapter 2. Habit Is a Kind of Nature Chapter 3. ""Just Like a Woman"": Passivity, Defect, and Insatiability Chapter 4. ""Beyond the Boundaries of Vice"": Moral Science and Natural Philosophy Chapter 5. What's Wrong? Silence, Speech, and the Problema of Sodomy Epilogue Appendix. Pietro d'Abano, Expositio Problematum Aristotelis, IV.26: A Text List of Abbreviations Notes Manuscripts Consulted Works Cited Index Acknowledgments"

Reviews

Remarkable feats of historical research culminate in this sophisticated reflection on sex and sexuality. Joan Cadden teaches us many things we didn't know. What is more important, she challenges the categories and principles we have been using so confidently to narrate what we were sure we knew with certainty. * Mark D. Jordan, Washington University in St. Louis *


Remarkable feats of historical research culminate in this sophisticated reflection on sex and sexuality. Joan Cadden teaches us many things we didn't know. What is more important, she challenges the categories and principles we have been using so confidently to narrate what we were sure we knew with certainty. -Mark D. Jordan, Washington University in St. Louis


Remarkable feats of historical research culminate in this sophisticated reflection on sex and sexuality. Joan Cadden teaches us many things we didn't know. What is more important, she challenges the categories and principles we haveA been using so confidently to narrate what we were sure we knew with certainty. -Mark D. Jordan, Washington University in St. Louis


Author Information

Joan Cadden is Professor Emerita of History at University of California, Davis, and author of Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, 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