Medieval Bodies

April 24, 2017
Goodman (The Cookbook Collector) probes the meaning and place of art in contemporary culture in her intricate and empathic novel. When artist and actor Collin is first drawn to Nina in a Harvard Square bar, he has no idea that the attractive young high school English teacher has no financial need to work at all. Her father is the head of Arkadia, a local gaming company at the leading edge of virtual reality technology. Convinced that Collin is squandering his talents, Nina encourages him to show his art to her father and his business partner, Nina’s cruelly perfectionist uncle. The novel then shifts its emotional focus to the struggles of one of Nina’s students and her increasingly troubled twin brother, who has become obsessed with Arkadia’s newest game. Exploring not only the varying ephemerality and permanence of both art and relationships, this richly textured novel also considers the commodification of art and art as a means to salvation. With its strong Boston setting, the novel also offers opportunities to consider the contrasts between local and virtual communities and the authenticity of the relationships each fosters.

October 14, 2019
Art historian Hartnell’s entertaining, comprehensive debut contradicts the popular conception of the Middle Ages as a “backwards, muddy” time by surveying medieval attitudes toward the human body. Analyzing medical textbooks, physicians’ accounts, poetry, religious sermons, and artworks from Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic world, Hartnell works his way from “head to heel,” addressing each body part in turn. Hair types, he notes, were seen to reflect certain mental characteristics: lank, blonde hair indicated deviousness, while red hair suggested a quick temper. Middle Eastern writers thought the pale skin and “unsettling” blue eyes of Northern Europeans were indicative of cowardice; Christians, meanwhile, associated dark skin with sinfulness. The heart maintained the body’s “humoral equilibrium,” according to physicians, and generated romantic feelings, according to the poets of “courtly love.” Male and female sex organs were understood to be inverted versions of each other, with the exteriority of male genitals taken as proof of masculine superiority. In the Middle Ages, Hartnell writes, “the body was everything to everyone”—a statement that holds true for any historical era. But the book’s broadness is also its strength, recasting Dark Age medicine and culture as more globally interconnected and enduring than previously thought. Curious readers will marvel at Hartnell’s lucid prose and generous selection of illustrations.