Early Modern Bodies

Early Modern Bodies is a wide-ranging and detailed introduction to a variety of different approaches to and perspectives on bodies in the early modern period, circa 1500–1750.

The collection guides readers through an examination of bodies at every stage of life, from birth to death and the afterlife, as they are situated in different social, cultural, and geographical contexts. It considers the bodies of numerous potential identities, such as criminals, prostitutes, witches, soldiers, and non-conforming sexualities. Though its focus is primarily Western Europe, the volume also pays attention to the wider world, especially with respect to developing ideas about race and ‘other’ bodies in what has been dubbed an ‘age of exploration’. Chapters are also dedicated to analysing what it was to be human, how humankind was considered in relation to the natural world, and how those adhering to non-Christian faiths were thought about.

This book is an accessible, essential text for students and established scholars alike who are interested in the history of the body, early modern history, and gender and sexuality.

Author Biography

Sarah Toulalan is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Exeter, UK. She works on histories of the body, sex, fertility and reproduction, and sexuality. She is the author of Imagining Sex: Pornography and Bodies in Seventeenth-Century England (2007).