Description
Marking a shift away from the view that gender is a product of cultural and linguistic practice, Oedipus and the Devil argues that the body as been oddly absent from these debates, that sexual difference has its own psychological and physiological reality which is part of the very stuff of culture and must affect the way we write history. These essays deal with the nature of masculinity and femininity, the importance of the irrational and unconscious in history, the cultural impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and the central role of magic and witchcraft in the psychic and emotional world of the early modern period. This bold and imaginative book marks out a different route towards understanding the body, and its relationship to culture and subjectivity. -- From back cover
