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This book addresses the evident but unexplored intertwining of visibility and invisibility in the discourses around syphilis. A rethinking of the disease with reference to its ambiguous status, and the ways of seeing that it generated, helps reconsider the network of socio-cultural and political interrelations which were negotiated through syphilis, thereby also raising larger questions about its function in the construction of individual, national and imperial identities. This book is the first large-scale interdisciplinary study of syphilis in late Victorian Britain whose significance lies in its unprecedented attention to the multimedia and multi-discursive evocations of syphilis. An examination of the heterogeneous sources that it offers, many of which have up to this point escaped critical attention, makes it possible to reveal the complex and poly-ideological reasons for the activation of syphilis imagery and its symbolic function in late Victorian culture.
List of contents
Introduction: Ways of Seeing.- Chapter 1: Aetiology and Etymology: Concepts, Bodies, Media.- Chapter 2: Recognizing Syphilis: Pornographic Knowledge and the Politics of Explanation.- Chapter 3: Facing Pathology: Modern (Re)Production of Difference.- Chapter 4: Prophylaxis and Treatment: Geopolitics of Differentiation.- Chapter 5: (Eugenic) Utopias: National Future and Individual Suffering.- Conclusion: "Uncomfortable Proximity" and the Ethics of Display.- Bibliography.- Index.
About the author
Monika Pietrzak-Franger is Visiting Professor at the University of Hamburg, Germany. She has published widely on Victorian and neo-Victorian studies, gender, medicine, visual culture and adaptation. She is author of The Male Body and Masculinity (2007), editor of Women, Beauty, and Fashion (2014) and co-editor of Neo-Victorianism and Globalisation (2015), Disease, Communication and the Ethics of (In)Visibility (2014), and Reflecting on Darwin (2014).
Summary
This book addresses the evident but unexplored intertwining of visibility and invisibility in the discourses around syphilis. A rethinking of the disease with reference to its ambiguous status, and the ways of seeing that it generated, helps reconsider the network of socio-cultural and political interrelations which were negotiated through syphilis, thereby also raising larger questions about its function in the construction of individual, national and imperial identities. This book is the first large-scale interdisciplinary study of syphilis in late Victorian Britain whose significance lies in its unprecedented attention to the multimedia and multi-discursive evocations of syphilis. An examination of the heterogeneous sources that it offers, many of which have up to this point escaped critical attention, makes it possible to reveal the complex and poly-ideological reasons for the activation of syphilis imagery and its symbolic function in late Victorian culture.
Additional text
“The book offers an ambitious and impressively researched study of syphilis in late Victorian Britain. … Pietrzak-Franger has produced an impressive and insightful piece of research … . the monograph is a rewarding read, offering various avenues for further research, not only for scholars working in Victorian studies and the medical humanities, but for anyone interested in the intersections of literature, culture, visual studies and the history of medicine.” (Sarah Schäfer-Althaus, Anglia, Vol. (139) 1, 2021)
“Syphilis in Victorian Literature and Culture is a thoughtful, well-researched, and provocative piece of research that uncovers the complexities of the representation of syphilis, its subtle and not so subtle symbolic functions in Victorian culture, and the part it plays still today in articulating social and political anxieties about nationhood and identity.” (Jane Desmarais, English Literature in Transition, Vol. 63 (1), 2020)
“This work provides a useful lense for Victorian perspectives on syphilis, offering the potential for parallels to be drawn with more recent times. … Pietrzak-Franger has produceda comprehensive and incisive piece of criticism, made all the more impressive for previous lack of attention to the cultural meanings of syphilis.” (Joe Holloway, The British Society for Literature and Science, bsls.ac.uk, February, 2018)
Report
"The book offers an ambitious and impressively researched study of syphilis in late Victorian Britain. ... Pietrzak-Franger has produced an impressive and insightful piece of research ... . the monograph is a rewarding read, offering various avenues for further research, not only for scholars working in Victorian studies and the medical humanities, but for anyone interested in the intersections of literature, culture, visual studies and the history of medicine." (Sarah Schäfer-Althaus, Anglia, Vol. (139) 1, 2021)
"Syphilis in Victorian Literature and Culture is a thoughtful, well-researched, and provocative piece of research that uncovers the complexities of the representation of syphilis, its subtle and not so subtle symbolic functions in Victorian culture, and the part it plays still today in articulating social and political anxieties about nationhood and identity." (Jane Desmarais, English Literature in Transition, Vol. 63 (1), 2020)
"This work provides a useful lense for Victorian perspectives on syphilis, offering the potential for parallels to be drawn with more recent times. ... Pietrzak-Franger has produceda comprehensive and incisive piece of criticism, made all the more impressive for previous lack of attention to the cultural meanings of syphilis." (Joe Holloway, The British Society for Literature and Science, bsls.ac.uk, February, 2018)
