In Praise of the Whip: A Cultural History of Arousal

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Zone Books, May 18, 2007 - History - 526 pages

In Praise of the Whip: A Cultural History of Arousal is a new history of voluntary flagellation in Europe, from its invention in medieval relgious devotion to its use in the modern pornographic imagination. Working with a wide range of religious, literary, and medical texts and images, Niklaus Largier explores the emotional and sensual, religious and erotic excitement of the whip, a crucial instrument of stimulation in devotional and sexual practices. From early modern pornography to the Marquis de Sade and the fantasies of Swinburne and Joyce, the erotic and devotional imagination drew on the whip.

Largier explores how the Reformation and Counter-Reformation problematized the medieval culture of arousal. The stimulating qualities of medieval visual displays, especially flagellant practices, processions, and spectacles, were subjected to a criticsm that sought to control the imagination.

In modern bourgeois life the practice, effects, and imagery of flagellation became a central site of the investigation into concerns and anxieties about exercising emotional self-control and censoring fantasy. Modern references to flagellant practice in the works of Swinburne, Proust, and Joyce testified not only to a “decadent” fascination with “medieval” cultures or “perverse sexuality,” but also to a fascination that nineteenth-century censorship, informed by psychopathological discourse, had obliterated. Such histories of flagellation, Largier explains, were attempts to recover a culture of stimulation and imagination — both erotic and devotional — that transcended the modern boundaries of sexuality.

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Contents

Acknowledgments
11
Suffering Transfiguration and the Scourge
35
The Priest the Woman and the Divine Marquis
221
Copyright

6 other sections not shown

Common terms and phrases

According actually Adamite aims already anecdotes arousal of fantasy ascesis ascetic Bartholin becomes blood blows bodily body Boileau Burchard of Worms Cadière Catholic century Christ Christian church confession critique desire discipline divine Doppet early modern Enlightenment entirely erotic especially example exemplary experience fantasy father Fetzer Figure flagella flagellant movement flagellant processions Flagellantismus flagellation Flagellum flesh flogged Frusta gesture Gretser Hence Henry Suso hermit holy human Ibid images imagination imitation Jesuits Johann Heinrich Meibom kidneys letter libertine Marquis de Sade means medieval Meibom Middle Ages monastic monks naked nakedness nature nuns pain passions Paullini penance penitent penitential Peter Damian pornographic practice praxis prayer priest punishment radical religious ritual Sade Saint salvation scene scourge self-flagellation sexual shame sins songs soul speak specific spiritual staging stimulation suffering Swinburne Teresa of Avila theatrical thereby Thérèse philosophe Thiers Thomas Bartholin tion tradition treatise voluptuous whip women

About the author (2007)

Niklaus Largier is Professor of German Literature and Director of the Religious Studies program at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Zeit, Zeitlichkeit, Ewigkeit and Diogenes der Kyniker. He is also the editor of the selected writings of Meister Eckhart.

Bibliographic information

TitleIn Praise of the Whip: A Cultural History of Arousal
Zone Bks
AuthorNiklaus Largier
Editionillustrated
PublisherZone Books, 2007
ISBN189095165X, 9781890951658
Length526 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Social History
Psychology / Human Sexuality
Social Science / Popular Culture
Social Science / Sociology / General
  
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