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Elizabeth Reis - Bodies in Doubt, Inbunden

Inbunden, Engelska, 2009

Bodies in Doubt

An American History of Intersex

Av Elizabeth Reis

576 kr

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Beskrivning
What does it mean to be human? To be human is, in part, to be physically sexed and culturally gendered. Yet not all bodies are clearly male or female. Bodies in Doubt traces the changing definitions, perceptions, and medical management of intersex (atypical sex development) in America from the colonial period to the present day. From the beginning, intersex bodies have been marked as "other," as monstrous, sinister, threatening, inferior, and unfortunate. Some nineteenth-century doctors viewed their intersex patients with disrespect and suspicion. Later, doctors showed more empathy for their patients' plights and tried to make correct decisions regarding their care. Yet definitions of "correct" in matters of intersex were entangled with shifting ideas and tensions about what was natural and normal, indeed about what constituted personhood or humanity. Reis has examined hundreds of cases of "hermaphroditism" and intersex found in medical and popular literature and argues that medical practice cannot be understood outside of the broader cultural context in which it is embedded.As the history of responses to intersex bodies has shown, doctors are influenced by social concerns about marriage and heterosexuality. Bodies in Doubt considers how Americans have interpreted and handled ambiguous bodies, how the criteria and the authority for judging bodies changed, how both the binary gender ideal and the anxiety over uncertainty persisted, and how the process for defining the very norms of sex and gender evolved. Bodies in Doubt breaks new ground in examining the historical roots of modern attitudes about intersex in the United States and will interest scholars and researchers in disability studies, social history, gender studies, and the history of medicine.
Produktinformation
  • Utgivningsdatum: 2009-08-26
  • Mått: 152 x 229 x 21 mm
  • Vikt: 454 g
  • Format: Inbunden
  • Språk: Engelska
  • Förlag: Johns Hopkins University Press
  • ISBN: 9780801891557
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Mer om författaren

Elizabeth Reis is an associate professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Program and the History Department at the University of Oregon and author of Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England.

Recensioner i media

An excellent book that treats its subject matter with care and respect, and which encourages critical thinking about the issues discussed. American Journal of Human Biology 2010 In telling her story, Reis has also provided an excellent collection of illustrations. For scholars and medical students, this pleasantly written history provides an opportunity to view examples of these unusual problems. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 2010 An excellent history of attitudes towards intersex persons from the 18th century onward. Choice 2010 Reis is an engaging writer... informative, engaging, and intersex supportive in tone. It might be most useful as a supplement in a university course on human sexuality or the psychology of gender. It is recommended to anyone interested in the sociological history of intersex, as one of the very few volumes on the subject. PsycCRITIQUES 2010 Offers much-needed voice to the much-silenced lives of intersex Americans... Reis captures their stories as told by a plethora of masculinist and authoritative treatises, including autopsies, legal records, and medical texts, and to a less extent autobiographies. Health and History 2010 Reis's study is useful precisely because of her broad brush-it promises to broaden early Americanists' conversations about sexuality and gender and could serve useful not only in courses on the history of sexuality, but in classes on medicine, gender, the history of bodies, and disability studies. Many important moments in intersex history receive more detailed attention elsewhere, but the author's goals of extending our thinking about intersex to an earlier era and linking often separate moments and issues are well realized in this engrossingly readable overview. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 2010 Bodies in Doubt is a thoughtful contribution to the historical analysis of intersex in the US and provides valuable insights for contemporary debates on the ethics of modern medical management of intersex. This linkage makes it an important read for gender scholars, medical historians and health professionals alike. Medical History 2010 Bodies in Doubt is a valuable, important book. -- James H. Jones Journal of American History 2011

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