The Frail Social Body

by Carolyn J. Dean

"In the aftermath of the violence and trauma experienced by France during World War I, French cultural critics - journalists, novelists, doctors, and legislators, among others - worked to rehabilitate the social body, one they now perceived to be fragile and porous. Carolyn J. Dean shows how these critics attempted to reconstruct the "bodily integrity" of the nation by pointing to the dangers of homosexuality and pornography. Dean's work demonstrates the importance of this concept of bodily integrity in France and shows how it was ultimately used to define first-class citizenship."--BOOK JACKET.