Description: Body Language examines how eighteenth-century medical discourse informed the comic novel. Through comic representations of "leaky" female physical, psychological, and emotional embodiment, novels by Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, Laurence Sterne, and Charlotte Lennox engage political and social anxieties caused by women's sexuality.
Review Quotes: "An erudite, engaging account of how eighteenth-century comic novels refigure, in fascinating and unexpected ways, misogynistic medical theories about ciswomen's embodiment. Through meticulous excavation of eighteenth-century medical treatises and highly original close readings of canonical novels by Smollett, Sterne, Fielding, and Lennox, Alves offers compelling new dimensions to the literary histories of medicine, gender, and sexuality. A must-read for specialists and non-specialists alike!"--Jason Farr "author of Novel Bodies: Disability and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century British Literature"