Add to ORKGThe point of departure of the article is an analysis of medical discourse of the end of 19th century, which was concentrated on the symptoms of neurasthenia – a disease of men who were considered victims of civilisation, in contrast to women’s hysteria, regarded as their bodily affliction. The author notes a special status of this discourse which transcends the borders of medicine and diagnoses the whole social field: it becomes entangled in the relationships between sexes and genders, in class, ethnical and national stratification; expresses the traits of capitalism, democracy and its requirements, thus becoming a means of conveying contemporary ideas and phantasms concerning sexuality and its relation with subjectivity. The phanta...
