Flogging others : corporal punishment and cultural identity from antiquity to the present / G. Geltner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Geltner, G. (Guy), 1974- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Corporal punishment--History.

Corporal punishment.

Flagellation--History.

Flagellation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (112 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Corporal punishment is often seen as a litmus test for a society's degree of civilization. Its licit use purports to separate modernity from premodernity, enlightened from barbaric cultures. As Geltner argues, however, neither did the infliction of bodily pain typify earlier societies nor did it vanish from penal theory, policy, or practice. Far from displaying a steady decline that accelerated with the Enlightenment, physical punishment was contested throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, its application expanding and contracting under diverse pressures. Moreover, despite the integration of penal incarceration into criminal justice systems since the nineteenth century, modern nation states and colonial regimes increased rather than limited the use of corporal punishment. Flogging Others thus challenges a common understanding of modernization and Western identity and underscores earlier civilizations' nuanced approaches to punishment, deviance, and the human body. Today as in the past, corporal punishment thrives due to its capacity to define otherness efficiently and unambiguously, either as a measure acting upon a deviant's body or as a practice that epitomizes - in the eyes of external observers - a culture's backwardness.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Historical and Anthropological Approaches

Problems of Definition

Problems of Interpretation

2. Punishing Bodies

Antiquity

Later Antiquity: Greece, Rome, and the Sassanian Empire

Religion and Corporal Punishment

Judaism

Islam

Christianity

Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Modernity to the Present.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 14 Dec 2020).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-003-71956-2

90-485-2595-0

90-485-2594-2

9781003719564

OCLC:

923710093