ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book asks contributors to focus on how political power falls on the sexed body, irrespective of gender, and how this affects labor, politics, economics, social relations, religion, nation, rank, and sexuality. It highlights the function of the sexed body – in material and ideational ways – in the construction of identity. The book turns to modes and models of women's "Authorship and Patronage," each in its way pressing for an expanded understanding of what the categories themselves comprise. It captures the body in a particular attitude: in distress, vulnerability, pain, pleasure, labor, health, reproduction, or preparation for death. The book examines women's cultural participation as both authors and agents. It investigates how religion shaped women's attitudes to education and cultural practice and how social and political attitudes toward women were in turn shaped by religion.
