About the Book
"Never has medical history been more entertaining" (Dr Jennifer Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible) than in this turbulent history of women's bodies from classical Greece to the modern age Breasts, clitoris, hymen, and womb. Across history, these body parts have told women who they are and what they should do. Although knowledge of each part has changed through time, none of them tells a simple story. The way they work and in some cases even their existence have been debated. They can be seen as powerful or as disgusting, as relevant only to reproduction or as sources of sexual pleasure.
In Immaculate Forms, classicist and historian Helen King explores the symbiotic relationship between religion and medicine and their twinned history of gatekeeping over these key organs that have been used to define "woman," illustrating how conceptions of women's bodies have owed more to imagination and myth than to observation and science. Throughout history, the way we understand the body has always been debated, and it is still shaped by human intervention and read according to cultural interpretations.
Astute and engaging, Immaculate Forms is for everyone who has wondered what history has to say about today's raging debates over the human body and who is "really" female.
About the Author :
Helen King is Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at The Open University. She is an elected member of the General Synod of the Church of England, where she is vice chair of Together, which campaigns on a range of discrimination issues including discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexuality. She is the author of Hippocrates' Woman and has published extensively on the history of women's health. She lives in Oxfordshire, England.
Review :
"King is a British classicist interested in the many ways that women's bodies have been misunderstood by the Western world, including the damage done by Christianity... Her book leaves you with the impression that, no matter what you believe to be obvious and natural about the female body, somebody in power once believed the exact opposite."--New Yorker
"King is meticulous and prolific. She has written with equal erudition and care about the ancient, medieval, and early modern periods. She brings this range and expertise to Immaculate Forms - plus more than a little humor... Immaculate Forms is a masterful achievement born from an impressive and influential career."--Science Magazine
"Helen King's Immaculate Forms: Uncovering the History of Women's Bodies draws on a wealth of material to support a richly nuanced and absorbing exploration of women's unique anatomy." --Times Literary Supplement
A Church Times 2024 Favorite Book
"By denaturalizing our own unexamined beliefs about bodies, King renders our own bodies unfamiliar, revealing them to be, at least in part, chimerical. Her assertion works like a magic trick, or a turn in a poem that recontextualizes everything that precedes it. ...King contends that understanding the changing nature of historical ideas about bodies, gender, and sex presents us with opportunities to challenge and expand our own."--American Scholar
"King's book is chock-full of wonderful, strange, and amazing stories."--BBC Magazine
"An impressively widely read study of four parts of the female anatomy often (and sometimes incorrectly) considered to be uniquely female, and the way our conception of them has changed throughout history, from medical treatises to agony aunt columns. It is lightened along the way with illuminating trivia - Mary Wollstonecraft breastfed puppies on her deathbed - and King's gentle wit."--New Statesman
"A comprehensive and detailed historical account of the way in which four different parts of women's bodies - breasts, clitoris, hymen, and womb - have been viewed, interpreted, and treated by society, medicine, and the Church, mainly by men... impressive research."--Church Times
"King's thoughtful tome [addresses] how difficult it has been for women, having historically always been perceived as mysteries to themselves and to those who would seek to know them... King addresses how women have been defined, and how their bodies by their very existence resist those definitions."--Financial Times
"Immaculate Forms is also a work of immaculate writing. With unrivalled expertise and a wealth of classical and contemporary detail, the author weaves historical knowledge of medicine, anatomy, literature, art, and religion into a narrative that surprises, informs, excites, and frequently amuses. Essential reading for busting prejudice and myth about women and their bodies."--Adrian Thatcher, author of Vile Bodies
"Delightful, timely, and critical. If cognitive science has taught us anything, it's that our imagination of the future is built from our memories of the past. King is here to give us some better material to build with. The history of women's bodies isn't nearly what you think it is, nor the history of 'womanhood' itself."--Cat Bohannon, author of Eve
"In Immaculate Forms, King expertly weaves science, history, and culture to illuminate history and educate about the most misunderstood parts of our bodies. There is no better guide to trace the history of what we know and to make it relevant for us today. Never has medical history been more entertaining! Impeccably researched, thoroughly enjoyable, and filled with moments of surprise, this book will astound. Immaculate Forms is not just essential reading for those interested in science; it should be read by anyone interested in understanding how disinformation about women's bodies comes to be, and how it can be exploited."--Dr. Jennifer Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible
"With erudition and cool wit, Helen King anatomises three millennia of Western commentary from doctors, teachers, and theologians about the female body. Males have tended to do most of the talking; now readers across the gender spectrum can find surprises and illuminations in this entertainingly comprehensive survey of what past generations knew, thought they knew, and often got wildly wrong."--Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of Christianity
