High Anxiety

This collection explores the evolution of notions about masculinity during the intense crisis of Renaissance and early modern France. Authors of the period reflect the anxieties about masculinity that became more pronounced against the backdrop of major events and innovations of the period: the religious conflict in France, the repeated questioning of religious and royal authority, the revival of Greek scepticism, the discovery of the New World, and the rise of clinical medicine. These events in turn fuelled growing doubt concerning the fixed and hierarchical nature of gender distinction; a distinction upon which many felt French culture was dependent for its very survival.