Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body

137 Pages·2004·0.553 MB·English

by  Elizabeth A. Wilson

psychosomatic

elizabeth a. wilson
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ P S Y C H O S O M A T I C
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ Feminism and the Neurological Body
Duke University Press Durham / London 2004
∫ 2004 Duke University Press All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $
Typeset in Minion by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
appear on the last printed page of this book.
Instead of talking about the natural and the
unnatural—or even nature and culture—
we can talk about the parts of nature we prefer
and why we prefer them.—Adam Phillips,
Darwin’s Worms

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ C O N T E N T S
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Somatic Compliance 1
1 Freud, Prozac, and Melancholic Neurology 15
2 The Brain in the Gut 31
3 Hypothalamic Preference:
LeVay’s Study of Sexual Orientation 49
4 Trembling, Blushing: Darwin’s Nervous System 63
5 Emotional Lizards: Evolution and the Reptilian
Brain 79
Notes 97
References 113
Index 123

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ This book was written under the auspices of an Austra-
lian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, held in the Research In-
stitute for Humanities and Social Sciences (rihss) at the University of
Sydney. My thanks to Paul Patton, Margaret Harris, Rowanne Couch, and
Melissa McMahon for their support at rihss. It has been an exemplary
research environment, and a happy place to work.
Sydney continues to give me wonderful intellectual allies, especially Helen
Keane, Vicki Kirby, Elizabeth McMahon, Robert Reynolds, and Vanessa
Smith. Peta Allen Shera did great research work for me. During the writing
of this book I was a member of the Silvan Tomkins Research Group in Syd-
ney; I have learned many good things in the company of Maria Angel, Susan
Best, Anna Gibbs, Melissa Hardie, Doris McIlwain, and Gillian Straker.
Isobel Pegrum has been the most wonderful friend, and Jeanette Martin has
made all the good things better.
In the United States and the United Kingdom I am grateful to Karen
Barad, Penelope Deutscher, Richard Doyle, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Michael
Fortun, Mariam Fraser, Marsha Rosengarten, Susan Squier, and Elizabeth
Weed, who have responded to my work generously and have invited me into
their workplaces and oftentimes their homes. They have made my intellec-
tual world richer and more emotionally substantial. Much of the material in
this book was test-driven at the annual conferences of the Society for Litera-
ture and Science. The sls has been an important source of intellectual
encouragement for me over many years; many thanks to my colleagues and
friends at sls for their hospitality. Reynolds Smith at Duke University Press