R Gilbert

Health and safety issues now impose upon almost every part of business life. The system of enforcement is managed and implemented in the UK by The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) – but at times it can be difficult to know exactly which bits of this elaborate spider’s web should be applied in a given instance, and which are most important. This Quick Guide puts the subject into context, providing a rational overview and a valid starting point to applying health and safety in the workplace, and offers a concise and readily accessible interpretation of what health and safety legislation means in practice.

From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, hermaphrodites were discussed and depicted in a range of artistic, mythological, scientific and erotic contexts. Early Modern Hermaphrodites looks at some of those representations to explore the stories they tell about ambiguous sex and gender in early modern England. Gilbert examines the often contradictory ways in which hermaphrodites were represented as both spiritual ideals and sexual grotesques; as freaks, erotic objects and medical curiosities' and as literary metaphors and signs of social decay.