La vitalité des morts dans les sociétés médiévales

Vigor Mortis. The Vitality of the Dead in Medieval Societies
 

Edited By Scott G. Bruce & Stephen Gordon 

Routledge
December 16, 2024
166 Pages
ISBN 9781032884875


This volume explores the enduring presence and participation of the dead in the lives of premodern people from the Carolingian period to the end of the Middle Ages.

Unlike modern states, which erect barriers to separate the dying and the deceased from their families, friends, and associates, premodern societies in western Europe fostered an on-going relationship between the living and the dead that was mutually beneficial to both parties. As these studies show, the dead had many means at their disposal to communicate their needs and disaffection, including ghostly visitations and unquiet corpses. For their part, medieval authors told stories about the fate of the dead and the geography of the afterlife to dissuade sinful behaviour and foster virtue in preparation for the Last Judgment. Premodern hauntings also serve as a useful metaphor for the uncertainty of archival research in recovering past voices and for the racial presumptions that inform our reconstruction of the western Middle Ages.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of history and literature, especially those interested in the concept of death in the medieval period. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Medieval History.

Le gras et le corps dans le long XIXe siècle

Fat and the Body in the Long Nineteenth Century: Meanings, Measures, and Representations

Edited by Amy Shaw and Lynn Kennedy

 

University of Toronto Press
January 2025


In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the body was a key focus of discourse. Fat and the Body in the Long Nineteenth Century animates discussion and analyses of fatness, highlighting how corporeal expectations fit into larger social systems and showing how interpretations have shifted over time. This collection examines a host of primary sources – including literature, art, medical treatises, journalism, political cartoons, soldiers’ letters home, and popular fiction – to identify trends in how fat was perceived and promoted in the English-speaking world over the long nineteenth century.

Divided into four thematic sections, the book addresses epistemologies, artistic and literary representations, the turn towards quantification and measurement, and the connections to imperialism and colonialism. It explores the complex debate about the meaning of fat and its signalling of health, beauty, moral strength, and class status. The book shows how contemporary presentations and discussions of fat offer insights into ideals of gender and race and the processes of imperialism and of professionalization in the social sciences and medicine. By tracing how debates shifted over time, the book ultimately reveals that there was no universal interpretation of fat as a positive or negative characteristic throughout the nineteenth century.