Mary Fissell, Johns Hopkins University
Department of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
Monday, October 29, 2012, 8:30 pm EDT
Time: 3:30-5:30pm
Location: 337 Claudia Cohen Hall, University of Pennsylvania
Abstract: Aristotle's Masterpiece is the best-selling popular medical book about sex and reproduction on both sides of the Atlantic from its first publication in 1684 all the way into the 1930s, largely unchanged. My talk explores tensions between the book's early-modern model of kinship and newer ideas offered by a plethora of popular books about sex and marriage in the 19th century. I argue that the older model, reproduced in edition after edition, continued to have considerable appeal, especially for working class families, for a variety of social and cultural factors.