Prosthetic gods: Subject/object in early modern England

Ever since historiographers invented the period known as the Renaissance in the middle of the last century, studies of the age have been preoccupied with the individual. In recent years, however, there has been an increasing amount of scholarly interest in the objects of the early modern period—its material culture. This dissertation situates itself on the border between these two areas of research, examining a group of detachable parts which are prominent in the literature and culture of the Renaissance but which do not fit neatly into the categories of subject and object: beards, hair, codpieces; and handkerchiefs. Each chapter focuses on one of these “prostheses”, analyzing the way in which it worked to fashion early modern gendered and erotic identities. Chapter One argues that the facial hair was a primary way in which masculinity was materialized in the Renaissance. Chapter Two focuses on the hair of the head, demonstrating that it too was crucial, and that it constituted not only gendered identities, but also the political identities that emerged during the English Civil War (Roundheads and Cavaliers). Moreover, this chapter examines how these meanings of hair were mediated by Milton\u27s Samson Agonistes . The last two chapters move from “auxiliary organs” which we tend to see as parts of the body to those which we tend to see as objects attached to the body. Chapter three concentrates on the codpiece, analyzing the paradox of viewing this part as both an essential element of manhood and, at the same time, an empty signifier. Finally, the fourth chapter focuses on the handkerchief, a “prosthesis” which first appeared—or at least came into widespread use—during the early modern period. It demonstrates how this article served as a nodal point for a series of strategic maneuvers regarding the regulation and production of female sexuality, and how these concerns were both registered and rearticulated by the “napkins” in Shakespeare\u27s Othello and Cymbeline. In suggesting that these detachable parts had the ability to deeply make a person, this dissertation seeks to problematize one of our most basic notions about subjectivity and identity. Going back at least as far as Descartes, the individual has been conceptualized as an entity which is, first and foremost, individual (in the sense of “indivisible”). Indeed, the Renaissance is often imagined as the age which witnessed the birth of this unified individual. Against these ideas, I argue that at the very moment in which this unified subject was supposedly coming to stand on its own two feet over and against the world of things, that subject was and remained a “prosthetic god”