The cultural history of pain

The pain, which is often lacking a justification, has a history. And in this book, the following topics are gathered: gestures of the virgin martyrs, the sarcasm that accompanied Don Quixote's adventures, atonement for the guilt that occurred secretly inside the monasteries, the comedy of sexual masochism, the anatomical theater in the modern world, the expression of anesthetized patients, conscious pains resulting from nervous disorder, and involuntary pains caused by mental illness. Contrary to what Sartre emphasized, that it was impossible for him to encounter or dialogue with physical pain, every page of this book calls for this encounter and reinforces this dialogue. Between history and philosophy, this book discusses the successive (non-progressive) forms of embodying the experience of harm, and the artistic, legal, and scientific methods that have enabled us, from the Renaissance to our days, to culturally understand human suffering. Representation, empathy, simulation, coherence, trust, and narrative are some of the rhetorical and argumentative resources we have used and still use; to feel our pain, express it, and give it a semantic dimension and collective value.