A Centre of Wonders : The Body in Early America / Michele Lise Tarter, Janet Moore Lindman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lindman, Janet Moore, editor.

Tarter, Michele Lise, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human body--Symbolic aspects--United States--History.

Human body.

Human body--Social aspects--United States--History.

United States--Social life and customs.

United States.

United States--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vii, 283 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

"The earthly frame, a minute fabrick, a Centre of Wonders" / Lindman, Janet Moore / Tarter, Michele Lise

I THE PERMEABILITY OF BODIES AND ENVIRONMENTS

Witchcraft, Bodily Affliction, and Domestic Space in Seventeenth-Century New England / George, Robert Blair St.

Food, Assimilation, and the Malleability of the Human Body in Early Virginia / Eden, Trudy

"Civilized" Bodies and the "Savage" Environment of Early New Plymouth / Finch, Martha L.

The Body Politic and the Body Somatic / Miller, Jacquelyn C.

II DEMARCATIONS OF THE BODY: FLUIDITY AND CONTAINMENT

Murderous Uncleanness / Brown, Kathleen M.

"Clean of blood, without stain or mixture" / Spear, Jennifer M.

A "Doctrine of Signatures" / Stabile, Susan M.

III BODIES IN PERFORMANCE: CORPOREAL MANIFESTATIONS OF IDENTITY

Nursing Fathers and Brides of Christ / Dillon, Elizabeth Maddock

Quaking in the Light / Tarter, Michele Lise

"Antic Deportments and Indian Postures" / Nash, Alice

The Body Baptist / Lindman, Janet Moore

IV BODIES IN DISCOURSE: RACE, IDEOLOGY, AND PUBLIC RHETORIC

Hannah Duston's Bodies / Toulouse, Teresa A.

Body Language / Shoemaker, Nancy

Emancipation and the Em-bodiment of "Race" / Melish, Joanne Pope

The Problematics of Absence / Smith, Todd D.

Selected Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 255-269) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 20. Sep 2019)

ISBN:

1-5017-1763-4

OCLC:

1080550925