Violence and the Genesis of the Anatomical Image

Rose Marie San Juan's book explores the question of violence in the making of the early modern anatomical image, examining how power operated in anatomical images in Europe and its colonies. She also explores how bodies were thought to be constituted and how gender determines this question. The book is provocative and challenging and will be of significant interest to scholars across fields in early modern studies.

Format: Hardback
Length: 238 pages
Publication date: 31 January 2023
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press

Early modern anatomists were thrilled to examine a beating heart, and Andreas Vesalius claimed to have felt life itself through the membranes of a heart belonging to a man who had just been executed in his 1543 treatise. In her groundbreaking book, Rose Marie San Juan examines the question of violence in the creation of early modern anatomical images in Europe and its colonies. San Juan explores the literal violence inflicted on bodies in various civic, religious, pedagogical, and "exploratory" contexts, and she also examines how bodies were perceived to be constituted - systemic or piecemeal, singular or collective - and how gender determines this question of constitution. By examining how violence transformed the body into a powerful and troubling double, San Juan also explores how this kind of body permeated attempts to produce knowledge about the world at large. This book is provocative and challenging and will be of significant interest to scholars across fields in early modern studies, including art history and visual culture, science, and medicine.

Weight: 928g
Dimension: 208 x 262 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780271093352