Castration

by Gary Taylor

Castration is a lively history of the meaning, function, and act of castration from its place in the early church to its secular reinvention in the Renaissance as a spiritualized form of masculinity in its 20th century position at the core of psychoanalysis.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Gender, Sexuality, Cultural

318 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2000

About the author

Gary Taylor is George Matthew Edgar Professor of English at Florida State University.

There is more than one author with this name

Reviews

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bumped into this book through a quote in David Friedman’s “A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis” (which was amazing!) and I expected a straight-forward history of the practice of castration. While this was not quite that, it was much more interesting than I had expected. Taylor uses this practice and the men it created, eunuchs, to analyze not just the cultural history of manhood in western history but, using it’s modern corollary, vasectomy, analyze the trends he sees for its future. While Taylor does cover the history of the practice, going as far back as 5,000 BCE, his focus is on the cultural products that allow him to analyze the social meaning surrounding the practice and its consequences. Through the writings of Augustine of Hippo, other church fathers, Shakespeare’s contemporary Thomas Middleton and Sigmund Freud he tracks the changing meaning of manhood from late-antiquity to the early-modern and modern periods. This cultural analysis also allows for a reading of the corollaries of the understanding of manhood as it related to women and sexual and racial minorities. Lastly, he delves into the works of science-fiction, as of the year 2000, the year of the book’s publication, to examine where the cultural zeitgeist sees sexuality, gender and procreation going in the next decades. This was quite a fascinating book by an author that is not scared to tip the sacred cows of either Freudianism or Christianity.

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars because it didn't knock my socks off, but the book does it's job: the author gives a broad overview of how the western understanding of castration has changed throughout the centuries with some transhumanist analysis thrown in. The author doesn't dive too deeply into the material cultural practices around castration, instead staying with broad trends and peppering in specifics. The writing is clear and understandable but not particularly vivid. A good, quick introduction if you're interested in the topic.

[I wish I had eyeballs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great scholarship. Entertaining style with well-developed and understandable points. My only problem is that he is so centred around Middleton's A Game of Chess that it feels excessive and makes me doubt objectivity in those parts. However, he tells personal stories of his vasectomy, talks openly about possible biases and personal relevances.

[Luke Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bible study from a transhumanist perspective.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

It WAS an amazing book and earned all five stars - I read this one years ago for a class, and if you have to or want to read about castration, this one's written by an uber-creative manic depressive type *as I recall*, and so it's quite funny in places.

[Kit Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought this one mostly because of the cover. Kinda says it all right there.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome and entertaining read that helped guide my later BFA work at school. Lots of fascinating history and, as the title implies, humor.

[Joshua]

When I finish my other three books, I intend to cut into this one...