Sex, Religion, and the Making of Modern Madness: The Eberbach Asylum and German Society, 1815-1849

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, 1999 - History - 236 pages
Drawing on a rich set of asylum patient case-records, this book reconstructs the encounters of state officials and medical practitioners with peasant madness and deviancy during a transitional period in the history of both Germany and psychiatry. Focusing on religious madness, nymphomania, masturbatory insanity, and Jewishness, this study probes the daily encounters in which psychiatric categories were applied, experienced, and resisted within the settings of family, village, and insane asylum. Goldberg's careful examination sheds light on a range of issues concerning gender, sexuality, religious politics, class relations, state-building, and antisemitism.
 

Contents

Introduction
3
1 The Duchy of Nassau and the Eberbach Asylum
15
RELIGION
33
SEXUALITY AND GENDER
83
DELINQUENCY AND CRIMINALITY
147
Conclusion
183
Abbreviations
191
Notes
193
Works Cited
217
Index
233
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1999)

Ann Goldberg is an assistant professor of history at the University of California, Riverside.

Bibliographic information