Illness, with its power to make one's body seem alien, or to link disparate groups of people through contagion, suggested to Victorians the potential instability of social and biological identities. Displacing chaotic social issues onto matters of physiology, they managed a variety of social issues, including questions of race, imperialism, anthropometry, and health. This book explores how Victorian narrative registers fears of psychic and somatic permeability, sympathetic identification with another's pain, and conflicting measures of racial and cultural fitness.
Illness, with its power to make one's body seem alien, or to link disparate groups of people through contagion, suggested to Victorians the potential instability of social and biological identities. Displacing chaotic social issues onto matters of physiology, they managed a variety of social issues, including questions of race, imperialism, anthropometry, and health. This book explores how Victorian narrative registers fears of psychic and somatic permeability, sympathetic identification with another's pain, and conflicting measures of racial and cultural fitness.

Somatic Fictions: Imagining Illness in Victorian Culture
264
Somatic Fictions: Imagining Illness in Victorian Culture
264Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780804725330 |
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Publisher: | Stanford University Press |
Publication date: | 08/01/1995 |
Edition description: | 1 |
Pages: | 264 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |