Flesh in the Age of Reason
Porter, Roy & Gonzalez-Crussi, F.
6'NIYn'.^~ Flesh in the Age of Reason The Model n Foundations of Rods and Soul Kell Policy F. Gonzalez-Crussli he suggestiveness of the human body is inexhaustible. To the ancient...
...To medieval mystics it was contemptible: a repository of filth and sinful impulses best handled by neglect, mortification, and denial...
...Over two thousand references are listed in the bibliography...
...6'NIYn'.^~ Flesh in the Age of Reason The Model n Foundations of Rods and Soul Kell Policy F. Gonzalez-Crussli he suggestiveness of the human body is inexhaustible...
...The body's intricate mechanism has been, for some, an emblem of the wisdom of a supreme and beneficent creator...
...His energy was prodigious: needing no more than four to five hours of sleep, he authored countless articles in magazines and newspapers, wrote book, film, theater, and exhibition reviews, lectured indefatigably, and was a regular broadcaster on British TV and radio...
...Throughout the remainder of the work we are presented with an ambitious panorama of how society, philosophy, medicine, and certain prominent individuals have viewed the body...
...This statement may be taken as a shorthand description of the themes of much of his work, and of the main ideas developed in Flesh in the Age of Reason...
...Flesh in the Age of Reason will become an indispensable reference work...
...Thus, commenting on Swift's musings that the grand political designs of Louis XIV may have issued from less than exalted bodily ailments, to wit, fistula in ano: "Swift said it all: all his glorious schemes emitted from his vilest and lowest orifice, the Sun King was a pain in the arse...
...F. Gonzalez-Crussi, emeritus professor of pathology, lives in Chicago...
...More specifically, the focus is on eighteenthcentury England, a vantage point whose relevance is indisputable...
...Session II July 12-July 30, 2004 279 A History of Liturgical Spirituality Mark Francis, CSV 216 Liturgical Catechesis Richard McCarron, Ph.D...
...To the ancient Greeks, the body was an object of esthetic contemplation, raised by their plastic art to the loftiest peaks of sublimity...
...The first part, covering more than a hundred pages, deals with historical attempts to define the nature of the "inner self," that is, consciousness, mind, or the soul...
...A more ambitious project is scarcely conceivable...
...He quotes Swift, discoursing on the misery of the external body: "Last Week I saw a Woman flay'd, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her Person for the worse...
...Different views of the body have been held by different societies, even by different subgroups or sects within the same society...
...Suffice it to say that the concepts surveyed are not presented as purely intellectual, abstract notions, but are incorporated into narratives, and these in ALL TOO HUMAN Commonweal 26 June 4, 2004 The Sixth Annual Lecture CATHOLIC COMMON GROUND INITIATIVE Common Ground in a Global Key: International Lessons in Catholic Dialogue JOHN ALLEN Rome Correspondent National Catholic Reporter Response: Mary Ann Glendon Professor of Law, Harvard University Presentation of the Annual Cardinal Bernardin Award to Dolores R. Leckey Senior Fellow, Woodstock Theological Center FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 2004 8 P.M...
...The same may be said of other personalities and notable works examined...
...Add to this the endless imagery that the body continues to elicit...
...For instance, the chapter on Jonathan Swift's opera magna, although built on Swift's views of the` tensions between flesh and spirit, is nevertheless so wide-ranging and complete that it could well serve as an introductory essay in the best edition of his complete works...
...society—the body politic...
...yet, its author wears his massive learning lightly, without vain displays of esoteric learning or scholastic pedantry...
...266 Feminist/Liberation Theology and Ecology Mary Criscione, RSM 217 Transformation Catechesis 250 Music for Eucharist and Liturgical Year Bob Hurd, Ph.D...
...But Porter does not shy away from the pithy language of the street, when it seems called for...
...Weekly Current Issues Series 1: The Spiritual Calling to Organizational Leadership - Andre Delbecq, Ph.D...
...Of the Earl of Shaftesbury's lofty views of the self, Porter writes: "The nobleman clearly regarded his flesh as a bridgehead of vulgarity distressingly lodged within himself...
...Commonweal 2 7 June 4, 2004 Graduate Pastoral Ministries Program MA in Catechetics, Pastoral Liturgy, Liturgical Music, and Spirituality Session I June 21-July 9, 2004 203 Mystery of Christ Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, Ph.D...
...Pryzbyla Center, Catholic University of America Co-sponsored by the School of Theology and Religious Studies .FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Reception following the lecture Information: 212.431.7825 or commonground@nplc.org turn are supported by thorough, yet judicious commentary...
...Reflect on the multitude of ways by which it—a living entity endowed with a sex—interacts with other living beings...
...There's nature: the body natural...
...Unconventional and flamboyant, this English professor was noted for his fondness of chunky bracelets, VALERRY medallions, earrings, conspicuous chest hair, and denim wear...
...In an interview in the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2001, he declared that we have "three bodies...
...Thus, the book surveys perceptions of the body as "flesh," the perishable framework, and as "spirit," the subtle, ethereal element believed to compound it...
...Yet, Flesh in the Age of Reason is such an attempt, and the man who, not without good reason, felt equal to the challenge, was the late Roy Porter, perhaps the greatest medical historian of our times...
...2: To Be Announced 3: Social Justice Teaching - Jon Sobrino, SJ Six Week Session June 21-July 30, 2004 267 The Mystics as Spiritual Guides and Teachers of Prayer Jim Neafsey, D.Min...
...Addison, Steele, Samuel Johnson, Gibbon, Coleridge, Sterne, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Blake: the major figures of the English Enlightenment (and many lesser known) are scanned with equal sagacity...
...The agile phrase, the uniquely apposite quotation, the savory aside, and the not infrequent sparkle of wit, are especially commendable...
...and the inner body as well...
...Indeed, in the elegant foreword written by Simon Schama, we are told that Porter's extensive discussion of Tristram Shandy "may be the single most perceptive and intensely engaged commentary on this book ever written...
...To which the generality of mankind has ever attributed a metaphysical destiny...
...For the Western world is still living in the aftermath of that era, whose attitudes, ideas, prejudices, and sentiments England largely shaped...
...for others, a mere object of scientific curiosity...
...All thinking and experience is an attempt to relate nature, society, and self, and if you like I got the nature bit out of my system first...
...He died unexpectedly in his mid-fifties, in March 2002, at the height of his powers, while cycling in East Sussex...
...it is little wonder that those who had not made his acquaintance sometimes confused him with one of his students...
...The inescapable conclusion will be that to write a "cultural history of the human body," " even one limited in scope, is a rash undertaking bordering on folly...
...Father Markey Lecture Series For more information, Phone: 408-554-4831 or E-mail: ampineda@scu.edu Santa Clara University www.scu.edu/PastoralMinistries...
...The scholarship brought to bear on this work is astonishing...
...Today's consumer society has turned the body into a commodity, since almost every organ, many cells, and even some bodily secretions, are exploited for financial gain by various industrial concerns...
...As indicated in the title, it is the Enlightenment, purportedly the "Age of Reason," which is being examined...
...Porter, an extraordinarily gifted and prolific author, wrote dozens of books, and edited or contributed chapters to hundreds more, and published, it has been said, "faster than most of his public could read...
...These stylistic ingredients transform what might have been a ponderous treatise for experts into a thoroughly enjoyable work within the reach of the educated, nonspecialist reader...
...A book of this formidable erudition is not easily reviewed in a few paragraphs...
Vol. 131 • June 2004 • No. 11
