Histories of the normal and the abnormal : social and cultural histories of norms and normativity / edited by Waltraud Ernst.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Ernst, Waltraud, 1955-

Series:

Routledge studies in the social history of medicine ; 26.

Routledge studies in the social history of medicine ; 26

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social norms.

Deviant behavior.

Physical Description:

xv, 288 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2006.

Summary:

This fascinating volume tackles the history of the terms "normal" and "abnormal." Originally meaning "as occurring in nature," normality has taken on significant cultural gravitas and this book recognizes and explores that fact.The essays engage with the concepts of the normal and the abnormal from the perspectives of a variety of academic disciplines ranging from art history to social history of medicine, literature, and science studies to sociology and cultural anthropology. The contributors use as their conceptual anchors the works of moral and political philosophers such as Canguilhem, Foucault and Hacking, as well as the ideas put forward by sociologists including Durkheim and Illich.With contributions from a range of scholars across differing disciplines, this book will have a broad appeal to students in many areas of history.

Contents:

The normal and the abnormal : reflections on norms and normativity / Waltraud Ernst

Invisible friends : questioning the representation of the court dwarf in Hapsburg Spain/ Janet Ravenscroft

From 'monstrous' to 'abnormal' : the case of conjoined twins in the nineteenth century / Sarah Mitchell

Eccentric lives : character, characters and curiosities and Britain, c. 1760-1900 / James Gregory

Constructing the common type : physiognomic norms and the notion of 'civic usefulness', from Lavater to Galton / Lucy Hartley

Norms and violations : ugliness and abnormality in caricatures of Monsieur Mayeux / Nicola Cotton

Made to measure? : tailoring and the 'normal' body in nineteenth-century France / Alison Matthews David

'A masculine mythology suppressing and distorting all the facts' : British women contesting the concept of the male-as-norm, 1870-1930 / Lesley A. Hall

Interpreting abnormal psychology in the late nineteenth century : William James's spiritual crisis / Francis Neary

Can kinship be designed and still be normal? : the curious case of child adoption / Ellen Herman

Flexible norms? : from patients' values to physicians' standards / Christiane Sinding

A matter of degree : the normalisation of hypertension, c. 1940-2000 / Carsten Timmermann

Deviant roles, normal lives : why every piazza needs its own 'madman' / Sara Bergstresser.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

041536843X

9780415368438

0203028252

9780203028254

OCLC:

66392813

Online:

Publisher description