This book examines the life of Maria Duran, who was born with female
genitalia, but was accused of being a man and subsequently put on
trial for sorcery by the Portuguese Inquisition during the 18th
century. François Soyer uses Maria's story to open a window onto the
world of the experience of 'transing' gender, as well as the gendered
attitudes and responses to the transgression of gendered norms that
were adopted by churchmen, medical practitioners and ordinary lay men
and women. Drawing on the surviving (and staggeringly 736-page long)
sorcery trial dossier, Soyer analyses the secretive life of an
individual who actively and deliberately 'transed' gender. The dossier
analysis enables insights into aspects of life so rarely recorded in
early modern documents: the transgression of gender norms,
transgressive sexuality and sexual violence in female religious
institutions, in addition to the fears and debates about the power
that the Devil could wield over the human body. The 'Catalan
Hermaphrodite' and the Inquisition also reveals how the Inquisition
gathered a number of doctors, surgeons and midwives to conduct careful
examinations of Maria's body in general and genitals in particular.
Their reports and the discussions of the inquisitors are discussed by
Soyer and offer further fascinating evidence of attitudes towards sex
and gender in early modern Europe.
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Early Modern Sex and Gender on Trial
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781350377615
Publisert
2023
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Bloomsbury UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter