Disembodied Heads in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Review ''Disembodied Heads is a valuable addition to the recent chorus of voices raised in unison about the significance of the head in medieval and early modern culture, its implications for understanding the nature of humanity, and the essence of the human spirit.'' Larissa Tracy, Longwood University. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 3, Fall 2014, p. 1060. Product Description Discussing medieval and early modern 'disembodied heads' this collection questions the why and how of the primacy of the head in the bodily hierarchy during the premodern period. On the basis of beliefs, mythologies and traditions concerning the head, they come to an cultural anatomy of the head. About the Author Catrien Santing (1958), Ph.D. in History, is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Groningen. She has published widely on late medieval and early modern cultural and medical history, including Blood-Symbol-Liquid, together with Jetze Touber, Louvain 2011. Barbara Baert (1967), Ph.D. in Art History, is Professor of Medieval Art at the University of Leuven. Her research is mainly interdisciplinary, regarding sacred topography, visual anthropology, relics, and female biblical figures such as Mary Magdalene and the woman with the bloodflow. Recently she published Caput Joannis in Disco. {Essay on a Mans Head}, (Visualising the Middle Age 8), Brill-Leiden, 2012. Anita Traninger (1969), Ph.D. in Literary Studies, is Einstein Junior Fellow at the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Freie Universität Berlin. Her areas of research include the history of rhetoric and discourses of knowledge in early modern Europe, with Disputation, Deklamation, Dialog (Stuttgart 2012) being her most recent book publication.