48 research outputs found
Liberal governmentality in Spain: bodies, minds, and the medical construction of the âoutsider,â 1870â1910
This paper traces the fragility of the subject in the period extending from the aftermath of the Sexenio through to the early twentieth century. In particular, two case studies are focused upon: the question of gender âdevianceâ and the figure of the genius, in order to understand how medicine participated in the construction of âoutsiderâ identities within the context of the emerging liberal order. How did liberal rationales exclude or curtail certain wayward expressions of identity and subjectivity? What consequences did the marking of âexcessiveâ figures or outsiders have for notions of inclusiveness and citizenship within the late-nineteenth-century liberal order? By concentrating primarily on medical texts and journals published during the period, this study builds on existing research to tease out answers to these questions
Oscar Wilde and the Plaistow Matricide: Competing Critiques of Influence in the Formation of Late-Victorian Masculinities
This paper examines the ways in which the concept of âpernicious influenceâ was mobilized in late-Victorian periodical publications to reinforce a normative conception of masculinity through powerful discourses on the relationship between textual consumption and identity. Discussion of the threat posed by âpenny dreadfulsâ drew not only on widely held assumptions regarding the criminalizing influence of popular fiction, exemplified by the case of Robert Coombes, but also made connections with the supposedly corrupting effeminacy of the âdegenerateâ intellectual, with the trials of Oscar Wilde as the main focus. The paper goes on to explore Wildeâs engagement with the concept of influence across a wide range of his writings, in the course of which he developed an alternative critique of all influence as a perversion of self-realization. This relates in some respects to existing strands of critical debate relating to Wildeâs sexuality. However, the current essay seeks to frame Wildeâs contribution in terms of late-Victorian debates on the cultural significance of reading practices and in relation to Wildeâs own critique of influence, by means of which he contested many of the assumptions underpinning bourgeois conceptions of normative masculinity
Théodore Flournoy on synesthetic personification
In 1893, ThĂ©odore Flournoy published a landmark book on synesthesia â Des phĂ©nomĂšnes de synopsie [Of Synoptic Phenomena]. The book presented a pioneering chapter on synesthetic personification, including numerous striking case examples, and it is frequently cited by twenty-first-century researchers as providing some of the earliest examples of the phenomenon. Flournoy employed a broad definition of personification â the representation of stimuli as concrete and specific individuals or inanimate objects. This definition encompassed a more extensive set of phenomena than the definition used by researchers today and was illustrated by cases that would fall outside of contemporary subtypes of synesthetic personification. Yet, Flournoyâs seminal work remains unavailable in English, and the extent of the phenomenon that he described has not been discussed in the contemporary literature. We provide an unabridged translation of Flournoyâs chapter âDes personnificationsâ [âOf Personificationsâ]