Christopher J. Johnson, Bernhard Jussen, David Warren Sabean, Simon Teuscher. Blood & Kinship: Matter for Metaphor from Ancient Rome to the Present. New York: Berghahn Books, 2013. X, 357 S. $95.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-85745-749-3.
Reviewed by Myriam Spörri
Published on H-Soz-u-Kult (December, 2015)
Blood has become an object of intense cultur‐ only to the so-called New Kinship Studies, but also al historical scrutiny during the past two decades. to the history of the substance of blood. Several instructive monographs and edited vol‐ David W. Sabean has already published three umes are now available, Amongst many: Douglas volumes on kinship together with some of the Starr, Blood: an epic history of medicine and com‐ aforementioned historians, usually spanning the merce, New York 1998; Uli Linke, Blood and Na‐ time from the late Middle Ages to 1900 and with a tion: the European asthetics of race, Philadelphia focus on Europe. This most recent collection, use‐ 1999; Anja Lauper (ed.), Transfusionen: Blutbilder fully structured chronologically, starts of in An‐ und Biopolitik in der Neuzeit, Berlin 2005; Gade‐ cient Rome and ends in the 21st century. It busch, Maria Bondio (ed.), Blood in History and emerged out of continued discussions about kin‐ Blood Histories, Florence 2005; Christina von ship, now turning to what might seem the sub‐ Braun / Christoph Wulf (ed.), Mythen des Blutes, stance of kinship: blood. However, as the subtly Frankfurt am Main / New York 2007; Caroline W. nuanced introduction by Sabean and Teuscher ar‐ Bynum, Wonderful Blood: theology and practice gues, blood and kinship – contrary to what one in late medieval northern Germany and beyond, might suppose – did not all the time move in par‐ Philadelphia 2007; David Biale, Blood and Belief: allel but „sometimes in divergent directions“ (p. the circulation of a symbol between Jews and 4). Blood was thus not always the substance that Christians, Berkeley 2007; Gil Anidjar, Blood: a cri‐ tied kin together, even if the Latin term „consan‐ tique of Christianity, New York 2014. yet no single guinitas“ suggests just this. This argument is elab‐ book has dealt with the seemingly obvious history orated upon and mentioned in the chapters by of blood and kinship in a systematic fashion. The Ann-Cathrin Arders, Philippe Moreau, Anita Guer‐ collection of essays edited by Christopher H. John‐ reau-Jalabert, David W. Sabean, as well as in Si‐ son, Bernhard Jussen, David W. Sabean and Si‐ mon Teuscher’s chapter on the kinship diagram mon Teuscher thus is a welcome contribution not „arbor consanguinitas“ (literally tree of consan‐ H-Net Reviews guinity). According to Teuscher, only in the late de sangre“ can be seen as manifestations of a shift Middle Ages did „consanguinitas“ move away from what Michel Foucault called the system of al‐ from notions of fesh („caro“) and became associ‐ liances – in which blood had a unique real and ated with blood („sanguis“). Whereas comments symbolic function and was primarily tied to the on canon law from the thirteenth and fourteenth nobility – to a new regime of power labelled the centuries had focussed on the union of man and „analytics of sexuality“, in which blood emerged woman in terms of fesh, authors of ffteenth cen‐ once again, but now coupled with race. While the tury commentaries increasingly equated semen „system of alliances“ was dominant until the nine‐ with blood, thus relying on Aristotle’s hemato‐ teenth century, there was a certain overlap be‐ genic conception theory. This move towards a tween the two regimes of power and the emer‐ more literal understanding of the „arbor consan‐ gence of a link of blood and race well before the guinitas“ can also be observed in the diagrams de‐ nineteenth century, of which not only the statutes picting an actual tree, whereas previously the „ar‐ of the „limpieza de sangre“ are evidence – some‐ bor consanguinitas“ did not resemble a tree at all. times classifed as „proto-racist“ – but also catego‐ Teuscher explains this intriguing shift by rizations from the colonial world, as the insightful pointing out that blood had far more spiritual res‐ contribution by Guillaume Aubert about the onances than fesh, as was apparent in the Eu‐ French Atlantic World shows. Christopher H. charist with its dichotomy of fesh and blood. Johnson's instructive chapter on France itself, par‐ „Sanguis“ furthermore specifcally referred to the ticularly Brittany, also bolsters the claim that running blood, while there was a diferent term blood as a term or metaphor for kin was being for clotted or dried blood („cruor“), thus tying transferred to „peoples united by language and „sanguis“ tightly to „life”. Furthermore blood, as culture but defned by one blood“ (p. 200). opposed to the decaying fesh, could be consid‐ The most infamous example in the story of ered pure, even if this purity could become taint‐ blood impurity clearly is the case of National So‐ ed. cialism. In her chapter on the question of Another important shift in the perception of „Jewish Blood”, Cornelia Essner distinguishes be‐ blood around 1500 was that the „sacrifcal and re‐ tween two diferent strands of antisemitism viru‐ demptive blood” of Jesus Christ was „being chal‐ lent in the Nazi party. The contagionist branch lenged or supplanted by internal blood, the blood held that sexual intercourse (the alleged mixing of that classifed kin, that defned and separated blood) between a „Jewish“ man and an „Aryan“ races, the blood that transmitted and in its most woman forever contaminated the female blood, extreme representations denied the very notion thus rendering the woman unable to bear of redemption“, as Gérard Delille concludes in his „Aryan“ children, even if conceived by an chapter on the „Shed Blood of Christ” (p. 140). „Aryan“. However, this contagionist way of think‐ ing soon conficted with the modern knowledge of This change in the perception of blood was in‐ heredity and thus a tug-of-war commenced be‐ extricably linked to the dichotomy of pure and im‐ tween the two diferent kinds of anti-Semitism, pure mentioned above and it proved to be crucial the contagionist and the hereditary camp. This in the statutes of the „limpieza de sangre“ of late had repercussions in the defnition of who count‐ medieval Spain, which distinguished between ed as Jewish and who did not – a discussion that Christians, Jews and Muslims, thus making con‐ began in earnest with the Nuremberg laws in version null and void. A carefully argued chapter 1935 but that remained unresolved well into is provided by Teoflo F. Ruiz on this matter of much historical debate. The statutes of „limpieza
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World War II, as Essner shows in her remarkable blood and the diferent degrees of in/visibility of contribution. blood in society. One might think that with the end of World To be fair, the editors are well aware of the War II and the atrocious impact of the blood fact that their publication raises more questions metaphor, blood might have been severed from than can be answered and is it to their great cred‐ its associations of kin and purity. Yet as the last it that they recognize there is much more to be three articles written by scholars from the New done (p. 4). It would be no small achievement of Kinship Studies show, this is hardly the case. this highly recommended volume if it did trigger Blood cannot shed its traditional meanings, not more research in a hitherto understudied feld. even in modern medicine, as Janet Carsten demonstrates in her vignettes from her anthropo‐ logical feldwork in Penang (2008), focussing on medical lab technologists working with blood. The quest for synthetic blood might tame kinship, as Kath Weston puts it, however, the the quest has not been completed and we still need to rely on donors, be they from our family or from outside this circle. The last chapter by Sarah Franklin summa‐ rizes the recent trends in the New Kinship Studies and thus serves as an apt closing chapter to this volume. It traces the transition from blood to genes and the „blooding“ of the gene by showing the ways in which speaking about genes and DNA is modeled on older ways of talking about blood. The subtitle of the book – „Matter for Metaphor from Ancient Rome to the Present“ – is not entirely accurate and maybe promises too much. First of all, the chapters do not trace a his‐ tory in which blood was always „matter for metaphor“, but rather show that blood at times was used in a rather metaphorical sense whilst around 1500, blood did become more visible, as for instance in the „arbor consanguinitas“. More‐ over, no article approaches the subject of blood from a strictly metaphorological point of view, which could at times have helped sharpen the fo‐ cus on questions of matter and metaphor (even if at the expense of too rigid a framework for an edited volume). The question remains why blood became such an important substance for perceiv‐ ing kin relations and how or whether this was connected to medical and popular ideas about
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Citation: Myriam Spörri. Review of Johnson, Christopher J.; Jussen, Bernhard; Sabean, David Warren; Teuscher, Simon. Blood & Kinship: Matter for Metaphor from Ancient Rome to the Present. H-Soz-u- Kult, H-Net Reviews. December, 2015.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=45736
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