Abstrakt: | The point of departure of the article is an analysis of medical discourse of
the end of 19th century, which was concentrated on the symptoms of neurasthenia –
a disease of men who were considered victims of civilisation, in contrast to women’s
hysteria, regarded as their bodily affliction. The author notes a special status of this
discourse which transcends the borders of medicine and diagnoses the whole social
field: it becomes entangled in the relationships between sexes and genders, in class,
ethnical and national stratification; expresses the traits of capitalism, democracy and
its requirements, thus becoming a means of conveying contemporary ideas and
phantasms concerning sexuality and its relation with subjectivity. The phantasmic
projections of “endangered” masculinity, lined with panic and fear, constitute the main
objects of reconstruction and interpretation. |