Date: 24 July 2012
Time: 11.00am -1.00pm
Event Type:
UWA Postgraduate History Seminar
Event Title:
"The Body Politic Metaphor in Mutation or a Sixteenth Century
Manifesto for Social Mobility"
Abstract
During the fifteenth century the organic body politic metaphor
was gradually associated or superseded by a physiological paradigm
built on the ancient humoral theory. The new body politic, based on
humours rather than on organs, eventually became a dynamic and
fluid entity. Authors such as Nicole Oresme or Jean Gerson alleged
that the etiology of humoral imbalance had its origins in growing
social inequalities, Claude de Seyssel subsequently urged that the
cure to restore the humoral balance should focus on creating new
hope and bridges for the gifted. Seyssel was able to draw up his
pioneering manifesto for social mobility thanks to the new
physiological image of the civic body. The present study argues
that such a physiological conception transformed anxiety about
motion and disarray into a belief that social fluidity was
indispensable to the wellbeing and health of the whole body, but
the idea that (social) order and movements are not conflicting, was
soon eradicated by new perspectives on nobility constructed on race
and blood.
Presenter:
Dr Nicole Hochner
Location:
Videoconference Room 1.33 (Arts Seminar Room 1.33), UWA.
