Life Embodied : The Promise of Vital Force in Spanish Modernity Volume 77 Hardback
by Nicolas Fernandez-Medina
Part of the McGill-Queen’s Studies in the Hist of Id series
Hardback
Description
The concept of vital force – the immanent energy that promotes the processes of life in the body and in nature – has proved a source of endless fascination and controversy.
Indeed, the question of what vitalizes the body has haunted humanity since antiquity, and became even more pressing during the Scientific Revolution and beyond. Examining the complexities and theories about vital force in Spanish modernity, Nicolás Fernández-Medina's Life Embodied offers a novel and provocative assessment of the question of bodily life in Spain.
Starting with Juan de Cabriada's landmark Carta filosófica, médico-chymica of 1687 and ending with Ramón Gómez de la Serna's avant-gardism of the 1910s, Fernández-Medina incorporates discussions of anatomy, philosophy, science, critical theory, history of medicine, and literary studies to argue that concepts of vital force served as powerful vehicles to interrogate the possibilities and limits of corporeality.
Paying close attention to how the body's capabilities were conceived and strategically woven into critiques of modernity, Fernández-Medina engages the work of Miguel Boix y Moliner, MartÃn MartÃnez, Diego de Torres Villarroel, Sebastián Guerrero Herreros, Ignacio MarÃa Ruiz de Luzuriaga, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Pedro Mata y Fontanet, Ãngela Grassi, Julián Sanz del RÃo, Miguel de Unamuno, and PÃo Baroja, among others. Drawing on extensive research and analysis, Life Embodied breaks new ground as the first book to address the question of vital force in Spanish modernity.
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Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:416 pages, 20 b&w photos
- Publisher:McGill-Queen's University Press
- Publication Date:30/05/2018
- Category:
- ISBN:9780773553361
Other Formats
- Paperback / softback from £24.95
Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:416 pages, 20 b&w photos
- Publisher:McGill-Queen's University Press
- Publication Date:30/05/2018
- Category:
- ISBN:9780773553361