Medieval Identity Machines (Volume 35)

Medieval Cultures #35

by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

In Medieval Identity Machines, Jeffrey J. Cohen examines the messiness, permeability, and perversity of medieval bodies, arguing that human identity always exceeds the limits of the flesh. Combining critical theory with a rigorous reading of medieval texts, Cohen asks if the category "human" isn't too small to contain the multiplicity of identities. As such, this book is the first to argue for a "posthuman" Middle Ages and to make extensive use of the philosophical writings of Gilles Deleuze to rethink the medieval. Among the topics that Cohen covers are the passionate bond between men and horses in chivalric training; the interrelation of demons, celibacy, and colonialism in an Anglo-Saxon saint's life; Lancelot's masochism as envisioned by Chrétien de Troyes; the voice of thunder echoing from Margery Kempe; and the fantasies that sustained some dominant conceptions of race. This tour of identity-in all its fragility and diffusion-illustrates the centrality of the Middle Ages to theory as it enhances our understanding of self, embodiment, and temporality in the medieval world. Jeffrey J. Cohen is associate professor of English and human sciences at George Washington University. He is the author of Of Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages (Minnesota, 1999).

Genres: Medieval, Sociology, History

368 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

case study - an analyses of identity using a queered deleuzo-guatarrian framework on medieval texts, such as Chaucer and some lesser known mystics. some thesis on temporality, culture, race, a lot of interesting cultural critiques happened in the wake of schools following post-structuralism, and this was one of them. Jeffrey's main concept is in the title - 'identity machine' - like a desiring-machine, of course, in its dynamically morphological form. identity has always exceeded the corpus.

[Rita]

feudal period Japan...this might relate....maybe not...who knows...I dont know where to begin...too many books on cultural identity...ahh