Author: Nelly Oudshoorn File Type: pdf Why has the female rather than the male body become increasingly subjected to hormonal treatment? Oudshoorn challenges the idea that the natural body exists any longer and evaluates the mixed blessings of the hormonal revolution.It is now impossible to imagine a world without sex hormones. Women all over the world take hormonal pills to control their fertility and estrogen and progesterone have become the most widely used drugs in the history of medicine. But why has the female rather than the male body become increasingly subjected to hormonal treatment?Nelly Oudshoorn challenges the idea that there exists such a thing as a natural body and shows how concepts such as the hormonal body assume the appearance of natural phenomena by virtue of the activities of scientists, rather than being rooted in nature.Nelly Oudshoorn challenges the idea that there exists such a thing as a natural body and shows how concepts such as the hormonal body assume the appearance of natural phenomena by virtue of the activities of scientists, rather than being rooted in nature.Beyond the Natural Body tells the fascinating story of scientists search for the ovaries, testes and urine required to develop the hormonal concept investigating how sex hormones have shaped our understanding of sex and the body, transforming science and medicine and ultimately redefining the relationship of women to reproduction. Nelly Oudshoorn concludes by evaluating the mixed blessings of the hormonal revolution. Beyond the Natural Bodypresents an episode in the history of life sciences that is essential to our current understanding of sex and the body and the relations between gender and science. Since the early decades of this century, the notion of the hormonally-constructed body has become the dominant mode of conceptualizing bodies, particularly female bodies, to such an extent that we now assume that it is a natural phenomenon. This book challenges the idea that there is such as thing as a natural body, and demonstrates that it is the process by which scientific claims achieve universal status that constructs such discourses as natural facts. Beyond the Natural Bodytells the fascinating story of scientists search for the many tons of ovaries, testes and urine that were required in experiments to develop the hormonal body concept. It traces the origins of sex hormones and follows their development through mass-production as drugs to their eventualtransformation into the contraceptive pill. Nelly Oudshoorn argues that the power to control sex and the body is not restricted to the domain of texts and ideologies. In addition, she discusses the chasm that exists between the scientific ideal of universal knowledge and the feminist recognition of cross-cultural differences among women, making the case for localized and user-specific applications of science and technology.

Author: Larry Eugene Jones File Type: pdf Hitler versus Hindenburg provides the first in-depth study of the titanic struggle between the two most dominant figures on the German Right in the last year before the establishment of the Third Reich. Although Hindenburg was reelected as Reich president by a comfortable margin, his authority was severely weakened by the fact that the vast majority of those who had supported his candidacy seven years earlier had switched their support to Hitler in 1932. What the two candidates shared in common, however, was that they both relied upon charisma to legitimate their claim to the leadership of the German nation. The increasing reliance upon charisma in the 1932 presidential elections greatly accelerated the delegitimation of the Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitlers appointment as chancellor nine months later.