Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
Holy Anorexia - Rudolph M. Bell
eTextbook alternate format product

Instant online reading.

Holy Anorexia

By: Rudolph M. Bell

Paperback | 15 June 1987 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $67.95

$50.99

25%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $12.75 with

 or 
In Stock and Ships in 1-2 business days
Is there a resemblance between the contemporary anorexic teenager counting every calorie in her single-minded pursuit of thinness, and an ascetic medieval saint examining her every desire? Rudolph M. Bell suggests that the answer is yes.

"Everyone interested in anorexia nervosa . . . should skim this book or study it. It will make you realize how dependent upon culture the definition of disease is. I will never look at an anorexic patient in the same way again."-Howard Spiro, M.D., Gastroenterology

"[This] book is a first-class social history and is well-documented both in its historical and scientific portions."-Vern L. Bullough, American Historical Review

"A significant contribution to revisionist history, which re-examines events in light of feminist thought. . . . Bell is particularly skillful in describing behavior within its time and culture, which would be bizarre by today's norms, without reducing it to the pathological."-Mary Lassance Parthun, Toronto Globe and Mail

"Bell is both enlightened and convincing. His book is impressively researched, easy to read, and utterly fascinating."-Sheila MacLeod, New Statesman
Industry Reviews
A brilliant, disturbing study of anorexic behavior amongst medieval Italian female saints. According to Bell, the demon that spurs self-starvation in women is an ever-elusive ideal: in modern America, "bodily health, thinness, and self-control"; in medieval Christendom, "spiritual health, fasting, and self-denial." In both cases, anorexia represents a woman's "war against bodily urges" in a search for autonomy from a suffocating, male-dominated society. Among Italian women saints, 50 percent of whom were anorexic, this rebellion struck at the "patriarchy that attempts to impose itself between the holy anorexic and her God." While holy anorexia did little to weaken the patriarchy, it did create a new model of holiness - the ascetic female of absolute self-sacrifice and willpower - an image finally replaced centuries later by the ideal of female saint as do-gooder (Mother Teresa). Bell's psychoanalytical approach, which often pinpoints the partial source of "saintly" behavior in childhood traumas, and consequently threatens to undermine conventional ideas of spiritual development, will bother many readers. He builds his case carefully, however, with a abundance of historical documentation. Still more disquieting are some of his anecdotes about popular saints. St. Catherine of Siena, we learn, flogged herself with an iron chain until blood poured from her body; St. Veronica of Guiliani couldn't keep down simple bread and water, but she avidly consumed plates of cat vomit and scoured spider-infested walls with her tongue. An unsettling epilogue by psychologist William Davis examines the implications of Bell's study for modern medical treatment of anorexia nervosa. All in all, an original, controversial, superbly executed shocker in academic garb. (Kirkus Reviews)

More in Religion & Beliefs

Religion For Thought : Writings and Lectures, Volume 5 - Paul Ricoeur
A Different Country - The Australian

RRP $59.99

$45.75

24%
OFF
The Lion Handbook to the Bible : 6th Edition - Pat Alexander

RRP $51.95

$40.75

22%
OFF
Eight Million Ways to Happiness : Wisdom from the Heart of Japan - Hiroko Yoda
The Buddha : Biography of a Myth - Donald S. Lopez

RRP $45.95

$35.99

22%
OFF
The Torah For Dummies : For Dummies - Arthur Kurzweil
The Strange Death of Europe : Immigration, Identity, Islam - Douglas Murray
Crusader Criminals : The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land - Steve Tibble
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind : 50th Anniversary Edition - Shunryu Suzuki
Art and Faith : A Theology of Making - Makoto Fujimura

RRP $26.95

$22.99

15%
OFF
Art Is : A Journey into the Light - Makoto Fujimura

RRP $51.95

$40.75

22%
OFF
All Things Are Full of Gods : The Mysteries of Mind and Life - David Bentley Hart
NRSV Catholic Bible Gift Edition [Teal] : Holy Bible - Thomas Nelson

RRP $69.99

$52.75

25%
OFF
NRSV Catholic Bible Gift Edition [White] : Holy Bible - Thomas Nelson

RRP $69.99

$52.75

25%
OFF