LA LINGUA DEI CORPI
L’ÉCOLE DE LA SALPÊTRIÈRE E L’ICONOGRAFIA DELLA DONNA ISTERICA
Greta Plaitano
This articole aims at investigating a part of the origins of one of the representational declinations of feminine immagination during the last decades of XIX century: the “hysterical woman” defined by J.-M. Charcot, director of La Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris since 1862. His study method, supported by photography, drawing and sculpture, is analyzed as a functional to build a new clinic and organic “hysterical body” prototype, that quickly spread in the academic world thanks to the publication of the medical investigation Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière. The examination of these photographs, based on J.-F. Lyotard’s works, will show the contamination of scientific practice due to the conflicting feelings, veneration and misogyny, for a new indipendent feminine type.