body
bodyThe history of the body is a discipline which emerged in the 1980s; it questions the extent to which the body is ‘natural’, and asks whether all societies have experienced the body in the same way. The combined classical and Christian heritage of western civilization has assigned the body a subordinate place in its value systems, but dichotomies such as mind/body and soul/body are by no means universal. The subject is associated in particular with the work of Foucault, although his studies of the classical world have been criticized for relying unduly on élite philosophical texts, neglecting Rome, and ignoring female sexuality.
It is in medical texts that the differences between ancient and modern experiences of the body are perhaps most obvious. For many centuries, Graeco-Roman medicine included the belief that the womb could move around the body, and debate existed on such issues as the seat of consciousness (the...
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