Pornographic Archaeology uncovers the determinant role that the sexuality of the Middle Ages played in the construction of nineteenth-century French nation and empire. This cultural history demonstrates how medicine's obsession with the medieval past helped to define European sexuality, race, marriage, and family.

Pornographic Archaeology
Medicine, Medievalism, and the Invention of the French Nation

Zrinka Stahuljak

2012 | 352 pages | Cloth $75.00
Literature
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Table of Contents

Note on Translations

Introduction: Sex and Nation

Part I. Sex and Blood
1. "Pathologic Archaeology": An Introduction
2. "Pathologic Genealogy": Biological Heredity and Medieval Kinship

Part II. Sex and Race
3. Symbolic Archaeology: Sex in the Colonies
4. Gilles and Joan, Criminal and Genius: Medical Fictions and the Regeneration of the French Race

Part III. Sex and Love
5. "Pornographic Archaeology": An histoire des moeurs
6. Courtly Love, Courtly Marriage, and Republican Divorce

Epilogue. From Pornography to Archaeology: Priapus at the Cluny Museum

Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments