"This collection brings menstruation into the new feminist history of the body. From Aristotle to twentieth-century gynaecological texts, the chapters analyse the ways in which menstruation has been understood inside and beyond Western culture. The twenty studies examine how mythical and scientific knowledges of the body work to produce popular notions about femaleness. They chart the ways in which the historical alteration of menstruation - from magical act through sign of lesser maleness, polluting spiritual weakness, index of sexed being, hygienic calamity, act of consumer flow, to pathological deficiency - has influenced and reflected our relationship with this most ideologically-laden form of blood. They reveal how many cultures and historical periods have pivoted notions of health and sexed identity on ideas about menstruation and expose that, through our cultural texts, we are talking about menstruation all the time."--Jacket.