The Modern Body

With this thematic section on the history of the modern body, Replika explores various scientific interpretations of the body and the dynamic relationship between the human body and the “body social” from a historical point of view. The introductory essay situates the following articles into the wider context of Western historiography and briefly addresses a number of relevant issues: the history of “discipline and punish”, the theories and practice of dissection, the history of the medical models of gender difference, modern sexuality, and metaphors of the human body and the social body.
The first contribution, written by Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, describes the construction of hermaphroditism in early modern medical and legal documents. The authors explore the spectrum of medical and natural philosophical views on sex determination and interpret the meanings of this form of sexual ambiguity within the context of early modern concepts of the natural and non-natural (unnatural, preternatural, artificial). The second paper treats Linnaeus’ introduction of the term Mammalia into zoological taxonomy to define the place of human beings in the order of nature. The author Londa Schiebinger depicts the wider social, political, and scientific environment to explain Linnaeus’ choice of such an overtly sexually charged term to link humans with beasts, while he used the term Homo sapiens (“man of wisdom”) to distinguish humans from other primates. 
The third article is Thomas Laqueur’s short essay on nineteenth-century interpretations of the “social evil” and the “solitary vice”. These two unsocial forms of sexual conduct (whether one has relationships with too many men or channels the sexual desire back into the self) threaten the safe and controllable household economy and, on a much larger scale, society itself. The fourth essay also deals with the correspondance between the body and the social order. Here the focus is on the construction of the Swedish national body in the 1930s–40s. Jonas Frykman explores the ambiguous nature of the complex process of modernization within country: the rationalization of many aspects of the economy, education, family life, which also involves the control and discipline of the people. The state monitored almost every aspect of social and private life, and in its attempt to create strong, healthy, and pure citizens, it did not refrain even from the use of sterilization. 
The last paper is by Emily Martin, who demonstrates how the interpretations of the human body and the economic order of society are in a dynamic correspondance, each immediately registering any alteration in the other. During the last twenty years, immunological descriptions of the body’s organization and functioning as they appear in medical textbooks and popular magazines reflect a shift from the Fordist economic system of mass production to the global market economy characterized by flexible accumulation and a high degree of specificity. All five essays prove that the characteristics of the social order and power relations of a given period are “inscribed” on the human body, while the body itself becomes the primary metaphor for understanding the functions and organization of society.