Fallen Bodies

Dyan Elliott is Peter B. Ritzma Professor of the Humanities in the Department of History at Northwestern University and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow.

"Lyrical in parts, this is a deep and reflective reading of those clusters of contradictory images which attempted to make sense of the exultant and the vulnerable in medieval bodies. Dyan Elliott offers a potent combination of the rigor of textual analysis, the passion of feminism, and the insights of psychoanalysis, as she juxtaposes texts in sequences never before conceived. This will be a treat for all medievalists, a demanding and amply rewarding intellectual journey."-Miri Rubin, Queen Mary, University of London "This elegantly written book reveals and explores a set of profound if elusive connections that made the materialization of the witch in the early modern period, in Dyan Elliott's closing words, 'virtually irresistable.'... A dazzling recreation of pre-Enlightenment thinking about the overlapping configurations of pollution, this important book will be essential reading for premodern and early modern scholars of gender, sexuality, and the body."-Medium Aevum "In this provocative and, at times, disturbing book, Elliott explores issues of anti-Semitism, ritual purity, and clerical misogyny within the larger historical framework of the Gregorian Reform movement of the high and later Middle Ages."-Religious Studies Review "That rare conjunction of impeccable scholarship, brilliant synthesis, and innovative intellectual insight. It is a far-ranging work."-Mathew Kuefler, San Diego State University