A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801487390 ISBN 13: 9780801487392

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Images of bodies and bodily practices abound in early America: from spirit possession, Fasting Days, and infanticide to running the gauntlet, going "naked as a sign," flogging, bundling, and scalping. All have implications for the study of gender, sexuality, masculinity, illness, the "body politic," spirituality, race, and slavery.

The first book devoted solely to the history and theory of the body in early American cultural studies brings together authors representing diverse academic disciplines. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources―including itinerant ministers' journals, Revolutionary tracts and broadsides, advice manuals, and household inventories―they approach the theoretical analysis of the body in exciting new ways.

A Centre of Wonders covers such varied topics as dance and movement among Native Americans; invading witch bodies in architecture and household spaces; rituals of baptism, conversion, and church discipline; eighteenth-century women's journaling; and the body as a rhetorical device in the language of diplomacy.

About this title

About the Author:

Janet Moore Lindman is Associate Professor of History at Rowan University. Michele Lise Tarter is Assistant Professor of English at The College of New Jersey.

Review:

"A Centre of Wonders displays the exciting work of critics and historians currently redefining early American studies. The organization is smart, representing an array of cultural studies approaches to embodiment and building bridges between literary, historical, geographical, and visual studies of early America. There is no comparable book on the subject."

(Dana D. Nelson, University of Kentucky, author of National Manhood)

"An important and eminently readable collection, A Centre of Wonders gathers many wonderful essays as it pursues a compelling problematic."

(Susan Juster, University of Michigan, author of Disorderly Women)

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0801487390
• ISBN 13: 9780801487392
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296
• Editor: Lindman Janet Moore, Tarter Michele Lise