Download or read book Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages written by Larissa Tracy and published by DS Brewer. This book was released on 2013 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays exploring medieval castration, as reflected in archaeology, law, historical record, and literary motifs. Castration and castrati have always been facets of western culture, from myth and legend to law and theology, from eunuchs guarding harems to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century castrati singers. Metaphoric castration pervadesa number of medieval literary genres, particularly the Old French fabliaux - exchanges of power predicated upon the exchange or absence of sexual desire signified by genitalia - but the plain, literal act of castration and its implications are often overlooked. This collection explores this often taboo subject and its implications for cultural mores and custom in Western Europe, seeking to demystify and demythologize castration. Its subjects includearchaeological studies of eunuchs; historical accounts of castration in trials of combat; the mutilation of political rivals in medieval Wales; Anglo-Saxon and Frisian legal and literary examples of castration as punishment; castration as comedy in the Old French fabliaux; the prohibition against genital mutilation in hagiography; and early-modern anxieties about punitive castration enacted on the Elizabethan stage. The introduction reflects on these topics in the context of arguably the most well-known victim of castration in the middle ages, Abelard. LARISSA TRACY is Associate Professor of Medieval Literature at Longwood University. Contributors: Larissa Tracy, Kathryn Reusch, Shaun Tougher, Jack Collins, Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, Jay Paul Gates, Charlene M. Eska, Mary A. Valante, Anthony Adams, Mary E. Leech, Jed Chandler, Ellen Lorraine Friedrich, Robert L.A. Clark, Karin Sellberg, LenaWånggren

Download or read book Castration written by Gary Taylor and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Download or read book Castration and the Heavenly Kingdom written by Laura Engelstein and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of the many sects that broke from the official Russian Orthodox church in the eighteenth century, one was universally despised. Its members were peasants from the Russian heartland skilled in the arts of animal husbandry who turned their knives on themselves to become "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." Convinced that salvation came only with the literal excision of the instruments of sin, they were known as Skoptsy (the self-castrated). Their community thrived well into the twentieth century, when it was destroyed in the Stalinist Terror.In a major feat of historical reconstruction, Laura Engelstein tells the sect's astonishing tale. She describes the horrified reactions to the sect by outsiders, including outraged bureaucrats, physicians, and theologians. More important, she allows the Skoptsy a say in defining the contours of their history and the meaning behind their sacrifice. Her deft handling of their letters and notebooks lends her book unusual depth and pathos, and she provides a heartbreaking account of willing exile and of religious belief so strong that its adherents accepted terrible pain and the denial of a basic human experience. Although the Skoptsy express joy at their salvation, the words of even the most fervent believers reveal the psychological suffering of life on society's margins.No foreign tribe or exotic import, the sect drew its members from the larger peasant society where marriage was expected and adulthood began with the wedding night. Set apart by the very act that guaranteed their redemption, these "lambs of God" became adept at concealing their sectarian identity as they interacted with their Orthodox neighbors. Interaction was necessary, Engelstein explains, since the survival of the Skoptsy depended upon recruitment of new members and on success in agriculture and trade.Realizing that some prejudices have changed little over the centuries, Engelstein cautions that "we must not cast the shadow of our own distress on the story of the Skoptsy. Their physical suffering was something they willingly embraced." In Castration and the Heavenly Kingdom, she has produced a remarkable history that also illuminates the mysteries of the human heart.

Download or read book Racial Castration written by David L. Eng and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2001-03-20 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Racial Castration, the first book to bring together the fields of Asian American studies and psychoanalytic theory, explores the role of sexuality in racial formation and the place of race in sexual identity. David L. Eng examines images—literary, visual, and filmic—that configure past as well as contemporary perceptions of Asian American men as emasculated, homosexualized, or queer. Eng juxtaposes theortical discussions of Freud, Lacan, and Fanon with critical readings of works by Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Lonny Kaneko, David Henry Hwang, Louie Chu, David Wong Louie, Ang Lee, and R. Zamora Linmark. While situating these literary and cultural productions in relation to both psychoanalytic theory and historical events of particular significance for Asian Americans, Eng presents a sustained analysis of dreamwork and photography, the mirror stage and the primal scene, and fetishism and hysteria. In the process, he offers startlingly new interpretations of Asian American masculinity in its connections to immigration exclusion, the building of the transcontinental railroad, the wartime internment of Japanese Americans, multiculturalism, and the model minority myth. After demonstrating the many ways in which Asian American males are haunted and constrained by enduring domestic norms of sexuality and race, Eng analyzes the relationship between Asian American male subjectivity and the larger transnational Asian diaspora. Challenging more conventional understandings of diaspora as organized by race, he instead reconceptualizes it in terms of sexuality and queerness.

Download or read book Eunuchs and Castrati written by Piotr O. Scholz and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A social history of the role of eunuchs in the households and courts of Greece, Rome, China, Byzantine, medieval Europe and the East, which aims to challenge traditional preconceptions about their duties.

Download or read book How to Castrate a Bull written by Dave Hitz and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-01-20 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dave Hitz likes to solve fun problems. He didn’t set out to be a Silicon Valley icon, a business visionary, or even a billionaire. But he became all three. It turns out that business is a mosaic of interesting puzzles like managing risk, developing and reversing strategies, and looking into the future by deconstructing the past. As a founder of NetApp, a data storage firm that began as an idea scribbled on a placemat and now takes in $4 billion a year, Hitz has seen his company go through every major cycle in business—from the Jack-of-All-Trades mentality of a start-up, through the tumultuous period of the IPO and the dot-com bust, and finally to a mature enterprise company. NetApp is one of the fastest-growing computer companies ever, and for six years in a row it has been on Fortune magazine’s list of Best Companies to Work For. Not bad for a high school dropout who began his business career selling his blood for money and typing the names of diseases onto index cards. With colorful examples and anecdotes, How to Castrate a Bull is a story for everyone interested in understanding business, the reasons why companies succeed and fail, and how powerful lessons often come from strange and unexpected places. Dave Hitz co-founded NetApp in 1992 with James Lau and Michael Malcolm. He served as a programmer, marketing evangelist, technical architect, and vice president of engineering. Presently, he is responsible for future strategy and direction for the company. Before his career in Silicon Valley, Dave worked as a cowboy, where he got valuable management experience by herding, branding, and castrating cattle.

Download or read book A Brief History Of Castration written by Victor T. Cheney and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2006-03-06 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victor T. Cheney has just published a BRIEF HISTORY OF CASTRATION 2nd EDITION. This book contains a five page index plus a two page glossary with numerous footnotes t aid the curious history buff and serious researcher. Readers unfamiliar with this subject (which is most of us) will be surprised to learn how important this operation was to many cultures of the world in times past, and to a lesser extent, even today. In Italy thousands of young boys were castrated to prepare their voices for the opera. In Arab lands slaves (both black and white) were castrated in order to become harem guards. Chinese emperors found castrated males to be extremely reliable for treasurers and other governmental posts. In the past their operation was very dangerous and many died from infections. Bur it also had its beneficial side effects. The average castrated male lives 15 years longer than “normal” men. This is because harmful hormones and other impediments were removed form the man’s system. For instance, one cannot get testicular cancer if he has no testicles. Many ancient religions, as well as the early Christians, used their religious duties unhampered by impure thoughts and immoral deeds. Though Christians gradually abandoned this practice some breakaway groups continued to castrate young men in Russia and elsewhere even in this 20th century. The author believes that castration can still play an important role in modern society. He shows that it can be used to prevent serious crimes, diseases, and the loss of vital spiritual and moral values.

Download or read book After Eunuchs written by Howard Chiang and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of Chinese history, the eunuch stood out as an exceptional figure at the margins of gender categories. Amid the disintegration of the Qing Empire, men and women in China began to understand their differences in the language of modern science. In After Eunuchs, Howard Chiang traces the genealogy of sexual knowledge from the demise of eunuchism to the emergence of transsexuality, showing the centrality of new epistemic structures to the formation of Chinese modernity. From anticastration discourses in the late Qing era to sex-reassignment surgeries in Taiwan in the 1950s and queer movements in the 1980s and 1990s, After Eunuchs explores the ways the introduction of Western biomedical sciences transformed normative meanings of gender, sexuality, and the body in China. Chiang investigates how competing definitions of sex circulated in science, medicine, vernacular culture, and the periodical press, bringing to light a rich and vibrant discourse of sex change in the first half of the twentieth century. He focuses on the stories of gender and sexual minorities as well as a large supporting cast of doctors, scientists, philosophers, educators, reformers, journalists, and tabloid writers, as they debated the questions of political sovereignty, national belonging, cultural authenticity, scientific modernity, human difference, and the power and authority of truths about sex. Theoretically sophisticated and far-reaching, After Eunuchs is an innovative contribution to the history and philosophy of science and queer and Sinophone studies.

Download or read book Surgery and Selfhood in Early Modern England written by Alanna Skuse and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-18 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Implements stories of surgical alteration to consider how early modern individuals conceived the relationship between body, mind, and self.

Download or read book The Perfect Servant written by Kathryn M. Ringrose and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Perfect Servant reevaluates the place of eunuchs in Byzantium. Kathryn Ringrose uses the modern concept of gender as a social construct to identify eunuchs as a distinct gender and to illustrate how gender was defined in the Byzantine world. At the same time she explores the changing role of the eunuch in Byzantium from 600 to 1100. Accepted for generations as a legitimate and functional part of Byzantine civilization, eunuchs were prominent in both the imperial court and the church. They were distinctive in physical appearance, dress, and manner and were considered uniquely suited for important roles in Byzantine life. Transcending conventional notions of male and female, eunuchs lived outside of normal patterns of procreation and inheritance and were assigned a unique capacity for mediating across social and spiritual boundaries. This allowed them to perform tasks from which prominent men and women were constrained, making them, in essence, perfect servants. Written with precision and meticulously researched, The Perfect Servant will immediately take its place as a major study on Byzantium and the history of gender.

Download or read book Castration written by Victor Cheney and published by . This book was released on 2003-11 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Spiritual Castration of Men written by Jim Corbett and published by . This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beginning, Satan has masterfully blinded men into desiring just about anything over the intimacy with God that was won for them through Jesus, which leaves them spiritually impotent and results in marriages that are out of order and children who are in need of rescue. God, however - through the brilliance of His Word and His promises - is bringing hope to every family and every fellowship through the restoration of the biblical offices of husband and father. The Spiritual Castration of Men is a step-by-step guide to healing and a salve for restoring sight. It is a positive and refreshingly candid look at the impasse in which you, as a man, may find yourself because of spiritual deception. Through relevant testimonies, insightful teachings, and engaging story telling, you will be carried along safely under the shadow of God's wings on your journey for truth, no matter what challenges you and your family may be facing. The Spiritual Castration of Men is an important, eye-opening book for the valiant heart that is seeking to please God.

Download or read book Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule written by Norman A. Kutcher and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule offers a new interpretation of eunuchs and their connection to imperial rule in the first century and a half of the Qing dynasty (1644–1800). This period encompassed the reigns of three of China’s most important emperors, men who were deeply affected by the great eunuch corruption of the fallen Ming dynasty. In this groundbreaking and deeply researched book, the author explores how Qing emperors sought to prevent a return of the harmful excesses of eunuchs and how eunuchs flourished in the face of the restrictions imposed upon them. We meet powerful eunuchs who faithfully served, and in some cases ultimately betrayed, their emperors. We also meet ordinary eunuchs whose lives, punctuated by dramas large and small, provide a fascinating perspective on the Qing palace world.

Download or read book Testosterone written by Alexandre Hohl and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even though research on testosterone is increasing, there is still much controversy regarding its physiology and clinical use. This book provides a broad overview on testosterone, from its basic features to the most recent evidence of clinical applicability. In addition, specific conditions in which testosterone play a pivotal role are discussed in detail, such as hypogonadism, misuse and abuse, puberty, cardiovascular effects and testosterone therapy. The testes are vital organs for reproduction of the human species, besides being the main source of testosterone production in men. Although not essential for survival, these singular structures represent the essence of male biological function. Testosterone is the most important testicular androgen in men. Low serum testosterone levels are associated with cardiovascular morbidity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, and mortality. Also, there is increasing evidence that serum testosterone is a major biomarker status of men's health in general. Hypogonadism in a male refers to a decrease in one or both of the two major functions of the testes: sperm production or testosterone production. These abnormalities can result from disease of the testes (primary hypogonadism) or disease of the pituitary or hypothalamus (secondary hypogonadism). Currently, the clinical features of male hypogonadism are sufficiently well-recognized, the causes are well-known, and the tests of the hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular axis are accurate enough for the diagnosis in most patients. Testosterone, the focus hormone of this book, is used in different forms and routes of administration. Several authors unravel its peculiarities and assist in choosing the most suitable form in each case, as well as the possible risks of its misuse or even abuse in men and women, seeking alternatives to help patients in this situation.

Download or read book The Castrato written by Martha Feldman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Castrato is a nuanced exploration of why innumerable boys were castrated for singing between the mid-sixteenth and late-nineteenth centuries. It shows that the entire foundation of Western classical singing, culminating in bel canto, was birthed from an unlikely and historically unique set of desires, public and private, aesthetic, economic, and political. In Italy, castration for singing was understood through the lens of Catholic blood sacrifice as expressed in idioms of offering and renunciation and, paradoxically, in satire, verbal abuse, and even the symbolism of the castrato’s comic cousin Pulcinella. Sacrifice in turn was inseparable from the system of patriarchy—involving teachers, patrons, colleagues, and relatives—whereby castrated males were produced not as nonmen, as often thought nowadays, but as idealized males. Yet what captivated audiences and composers—from Cavalli and Pergolesi to Handel, Mozart, and Rossini—were the extraordinary capacities of castrato voices, a phenomenon ultimately unsettled by Enlightenment morality. Although the castrati failed to survive, their musicality and vocality have persisted long past their literal demise.

Download or read book Beef 2007 08 written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Castration and Male Rage written by Eugene Monick and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarly yet lyrical, and informed by both Jungian and Freudian theory, this worthy sequel to the author's Phallos (title 27) maps the insecurities and unconscious forces which from early life prompt men to violence, and proposes powerful countermeasures.