Mary Fissell - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mary Fissell

Journal of the History of Sexuality, 2017

A r i s t o t l e ’ s M A s t e r p i e c e wa s the most popular medical book about sex and babi... more A r i s t o t l e ’ s M A s t e r p i e c e wa s the most popular medical book about sex and babies from its first publication in London in 1684 through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; it quickly became a steady seller on both sides of the Atlantic, going into hundreds of editions. The book’s anonymous author advised readers about how frequently a married couple should have sex: “The Bridegroom should remember, that it is a Market that lasts all the Year, and to be careful that he does not spend his Stock too lavishly.” Sexual relations were thus imagined as market relations, with men as active purchasers and women as the passive objects of consumption. Since in early modern England most actual markets were not open every day of the year but only on market days once or twice a week, in this metaphor marriage grants men privileged sexual access to women. Married men can spend sexually every day, so that they need to—pardon the pun—husband their resources carefully.

The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture, 2011

The Cambridge History of Science, 2003

This chapter concentrates on four of the territories of eighteenth-century natural knowledge: New... more This chapter concentrates on four of the territories of eighteenth-century natural knowledge: Newtonianism, agricultural technologies, medical books, and botany, or the natural knowledge. It examines the career of Newtonianism, and suggests that the fried-egg model of knowledge production and diffusion may serve to foreshorten understandings of the social meanings attached to the name of Newton. Agricultural knowledge was produced in technical illustrations, periodicals, books, letters, conversations, and material objects, such as machines and even farm animals. Knowledge of health and healing was widespread in the eighteenth century, extending far beyond the purviews of physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and midwives. Botany or the natural knowledge of plants provides the basis for discussing two current historical models of cultural change such as commodification and the reform of popular culture. Over the course of the eighteenth century, women became increasingly important producers and consumers of botanical knowledge.

Reviews in American History, 2013

Journal of Women's History, 2010

Thanks so much to all of my interlocutors here for their generous comments. It is very exciting t... more Thanks so much to all of my interlocutors here for their generous comments. It is very exciting to see how an investigation into the politics of reproduction in early modern England might provoke all kinds of interesting questions about cultures as wide-ranging as early modern Japan and contemporary Niger. Reading these rich commentaries brought back memories of how I began the project that became Vernacular Bodies. My dissertation and first book was an exploration of healthcare for the poor in eighteenth-century Bristol, in the southwest of England. It was conceived and written in the exciting years when historians of medicine embraced social history and embarked upon writing the history of the patient. At the beginning, I encountered a good bit of skepticism about the possibility of finding sources to be able to say anything about poor patients. As is so often the case, skeptics were wrong, and I found plenty of sources to write my book. However, I never saw a document that was in the handwriting of a poor patient. All of my work was, in some ways, at one remove. Either I was looking at hospital or welfare records that showed me details about poor patients, or in some rare examples I was reading printed working-class autobiographies and letters that gave me a valuable window into how poor people constructed the meanings of illness for themselves. When I began working on the history of reproduction, what I really wanted was, in effect, to eavesdrop on ordinary seventeenth-century women as they spoke among themselves about pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering. But once again I found myself working at one remove, reading small midwifery books intended for women readers. Initially I situated these books in a larger realm of prescriptive literature, reading, for example, conduct manuals that told women how they were expected to behave. Then I got lucky. A friend took me to the movies to cheer me up. We went to see Elizabeth, the film about Elizabeth I starring Cate Blanchett. I remember muttering to him at the beginning of the movie “oh great, human immolation, very cheering” as the camera panned towards Protestants being burned at the stake for their religious beliefs during the reign of Mary Tudor. But by the end the movie I was giggling. I could not get over the way that Catholics and Protestants were portrayed: Catholics wore black, scowled a lot, and they were always filmed indoors, while Protestants looked like hygiene product commercials, they wore brightly colored clothing and frolicked in fields of wildflowers. Wow, I thought, the Reformation

The Journal of Modern History, 2006

The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2003

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2010

History Workshop Journal, 1999

Vermin. To us the word connotes icky, dirty, nasty, disease-bearing animals who are out of place,... more Vermin. To us the word connotes icky, dirty, nasty, disease-bearing animals who are out of place, invaders of human territory. Vermin are animals whom it is largely acceptable to kill. We can purchase an array of devices, from 'roach motels' to smoke bombs, in order to do the ...

Gender & History, 1995

The human body has been an almost infinitely flexible symbolic resource; historians and anthropol... more The human body has been an almost infinitely flexible symbolic resource; historians and anthropologists analyse the multitude of ways in which the body has been construed in terms of politics, religion, sexuality and social structure. The body is at once both intensely individual and a ...

The Economic History Review, 2009

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2006

Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario Contraseña. ...

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2008

Women played substantial roles in health and healing in medieval and early-modern Europe. They ha... more Women played substantial roles in health and healing in medieval and early-modern Europe. They have been undercounted in studies that rely upon occupational labels, but when we look at caregiving and bodywork, we can see women providing a broad range of services. Although women often healed in domestic settings, neither female patients nor practitioners should be considered in isolation from larger market forces that shaped men's healing work.

The American Historical Review, 1993

The American Historical Review, 2008

Journal of the History of Sexuality, 2017

A r i s t o t l e ’ s M A s t e r p i e c e wa s the most popular medical book about sex and babi... more A r i s t o t l e ’ s M A s t e r p i e c e wa s the most popular medical book about sex and babies from its first publication in London in 1684 through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; it quickly became a steady seller on both sides of the Atlantic, going into hundreds of editions. The book’s anonymous author advised readers about how frequently a married couple should have sex: “The Bridegroom should remember, that it is a Market that lasts all the Year, and to be careful that he does not spend his Stock too lavishly.” Sexual relations were thus imagined as market relations, with men as active purchasers and women as the passive objects of consumption. Since in early modern England most actual markets were not open every day of the year but only on market days once or twice a week, in this metaphor marriage grants men privileged sexual access to women. Married men can spend sexually every day, so that they need to—pardon the pun—husband their resources carefully.

The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture, 2011

The Cambridge History of Science, 2003

This chapter concentrates on four of the territories of eighteenth-century natural knowledge: New... more This chapter concentrates on four of the territories of eighteenth-century natural knowledge: Newtonianism, agricultural technologies, medical books, and botany, or the natural knowledge. It examines the career of Newtonianism, and suggests that the fried-egg model of knowledge production and diffusion may serve to foreshorten understandings of the social meanings attached to the name of Newton. Agricultural knowledge was produced in technical illustrations, periodicals, books, letters, conversations, and material objects, such as machines and even farm animals. Knowledge of health and healing was widespread in the eighteenth century, extending far beyond the purviews of physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and midwives. Botany or the natural knowledge of plants provides the basis for discussing two current historical models of cultural change such as commodification and the reform of popular culture. Over the course of the eighteenth century, women became increasingly important producers and consumers of botanical knowledge.

Reviews in American History, 2013

Journal of Women's History, 2010

Thanks so much to all of my interlocutors here for their generous comments. It is very exciting t... more Thanks so much to all of my interlocutors here for their generous comments. It is very exciting to see how an investigation into the politics of reproduction in early modern England might provoke all kinds of interesting questions about cultures as wide-ranging as early modern Japan and contemporary Niger. Reading these rich commentaries brought back memories of how I began the project that became Vernacular Bodies. My dissertation and first book was an exploration of healthcare for the poor in eighteenth-century Bristol, in the southwest of England. It was conceived and written in the exciting years when historians of medicine embraced social history and embarked upon writing the history of the patient. At the beginning, I encountered a good bit of skepticism about the possibility of finding sources to be able to say anything about poor patients. As is so often the case, skeptics were wrong, and I found plenty of sources to write my book. However, I never saw a document that was in the handwriting of a poor patient. All of my work was, in some ways, at one remove. Either I was looking at hospital or welfare records that showed me details about poor patients, or in some rare examples I was reading printed working-class autobiographies and letters that gave me a valuable window into how poor people constructed the meanings of illness for themselves. When I began working on the history of reproduction, what I really wanted was, in effect, to eavesdrop on ordinary seventeenth-century women as they spoke among themselves about pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering. But once again I found myself working at one remove, reading small midwifery books intended for women readers. Initially I situated these books in a larger realm of prescriptive literature, reading, for example, conduct manuals that told women how they were expected to behave. Then I got lucky. A friend took me to the movies to cheer me up. We went to see Elizabeth, the film about Elizabeth I starring Cate Blanchett. I remember muttering to him at the beginning of the movie “oh great, human immolation, very cheering” as the camera panned towards Protestants being burned at the stake for their religious beliefs during the reign of Mary Tudor. But by the end the movie I was giggling. I could not get over the way that Catholics and Protestants were portrayed: Catholics wore black, scowled a lot, and they were always filmed indoors, while Protestants looked like hygiene product commercials, they wore brightly colored clothing and frolicked in fields of wildflowers. Wow, I thought, the Reformation

The Journal of Modern History, 2006

The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2003

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2010

History Workshop Journal, 1999

Vermin. To us the word connotes icky, dirty, nasty, disease-bearing animals who are out of place,... more Vermin. To us the word connotes icky, dirty, nasty, disease-bearing animals who are out of place, invaders of human territory. Vermin are animals whom it is largely acceptable to kill. We can purchase an array of devices, from 'roach motels' to smoke bombs, in order to do the ...

Gender & History, 1995

The human body has been an almost infinitely flexible symbolic resource; historians and anthropol... more The human body has been an almost infinitely flexible symbolic resource; historians and anthropologists analyse the multitude of ways in which the body has been construed in terms of politics, religion, sexuality and social structure. The body is at once both intensely individual and a ...

The Economic History Review, 2009

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2006

Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario Contraseña. ...

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2008

Women played substantial roles in health and healing in medieval and early-modern Europe. They ha... more Women played substantial roles in health and healing in medieval and early-modern Europe. They have been undercounted in studies that rely upon occupational labels, but when we look at caregiving and bodywork, we can see women providing a broad range of services. Although women often healed in domestic settings, neither female patients nor practitioners should be considered in isolation from larger market forces that shaped men's healing work.

The American Historical Review, 1993

The American Historical Review, 2008