June 18, 2025
|9780822967774|Science, Masculinity, and Modernity in Argentina, 1776–1852|As rigorous scientific and philosophical discourse circulated during the Enlightenment, aided by the Republic of Letters, a revolutionary understanding of gender emerged that would impact nation building in Europe and the Americas. In From Virile to Sterile, Adriana Novoa analyzes the cosmopolitan citizens of this metaphysical republic—an international community of scholars and literary figures—and the first universal modern male identity it established. By the end of the eighteenth century, she reveals, man’s role in society had fundamentally changed. This “man of letters” possessed a masculinity that was learned and shared―different from the warrior model…