The Frail Social Body / Edition 1

by Carolyn J. Dean

Overview

Amid the national shame and subjugation following World War I in France, cultural critics there—journalists, novelists, doctors, and legislators, among others—worked to rehabilitate what was perceived as an unhealthy social body. Carolyn J. Dean shows how these critics attempted to reconstruct the “bodily integrity” of the nation by pointing to the dangers of homosexuality and pornography. Dean's provocative work demonstrates the importance of this concept of bodily integrity in France and shows how it was ultimately used to define first-class citizenship.

Dean presents fresh historical material—including novels and medical treatises—to show how fantasies about the body-violating qualities of homosexuality and pornography informed social perceptions and political action. Although she focuses on the period from 1890 to 1945, Dean also establishes the relevance of these ideas to current preoccupations with pornography and sexuality in the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520219953
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	02/16/2000
Series:	Studies on the History of Society and Culture Series , #36
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	275
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Carolyn J. Dean is Professor of History at Brown University and author of The Self and Its Pleasures: Bataille, Lacan, and the History of the Decentered Subject (1992) and Sexuality and Modern Western Culture (1996).