Kathleen Long analyzes works from a range of disciplines and domains, medical, alchemical, philosophical, poetic, and political, to explore the reasons for the centrality of the hermaphrodite in early modern European thought. She explores the significance of this figure for the elaboration of notions of gender, national, racial, and religious identity.
'... one of those valuable books that both introduces unfamiliar authors and recasts well-known figures in a new light. It brings together writing from seemingly disparate registers: medical, satirical, philosophical, lyrical, fictional, and alchemical. One of the book's surprises is that the hermaphrodite appears so frequently and in so many contexts in early modern France. ... it makes a very important original contribution to scholarship in early modern French literature and culture.' Mary B. McKinley, Douglas Huntly Gordon Professor of French, University of Virginia '[Kathleen Long] combines a wealth of historical information and textual analysis with a judicious sprinkling of modern theory, all set against a historical backdrop both political and scientific... wide-ranging and engaging study.' French Studies 'Readers with a background in gender studies will find this book a rich source of material on early modern theories of sex and gender. For medical and social historians it offers a fresh approach to well-known and less well-known sources on monstrous births in Renaissance France.' Medical History 'Kathleen P. Long's exploration of the hermaphrodite in Europe provides a rich and revealing study of this figure in the early modern period, and presents an interdisciplinary and intertextual approach to gender studies. Indeed, the broad variety of documents analyzed in this book is impressively extensive: scientific and alchemical treatises, political pamphlets, medical texts, novels and poetry... Long admiringly proves her deep knowledge and understanding of this debate by providing a helpful framework and by offering a significant contribution to gender studies in ways that transcend disciplines and culture.' Renaissance Quarterly
