Images of bodies and bodily practices abound in early America: from spirit possession, Fasting Days, and infanticide to running the gauntlet, going 'naked as a sign, ’ flogging, bundling, and scalping. All have implications for the study of gender, sexuality, masculinity, illness, the 'body politic, ’ spirituality, race, and slavery. The first book devoted solely to the history and theory of the body in early American cultural studies brings together authors representing diverse academic disciplines.Drawing on a wide range of archival sources—including itinerant ministers’ journals, Revolutionary tracts and broadsides, advice manuals, and household inventories—they approach the theoretical analysis of the body in exciting new ways. A Centre of Wonders covers such varied topics as dance and movement among Native Americans; invading witch bodies in architecture and household spaces; rituals of baptism, conversion, and church discipline; eighteenth-century women’s journaling; and the body as a rhetorical device in the language of diplomacy.
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Janet Moore Lindman is Associate Professor of History at Rowan University. Michele Lise Tarter is Assistant Professor of English at The College of New Jersey.