Approximate Bodies examines, in fascinating detail, the changing representation of the body in early modern drama and in the period's anatomical and gynaecological treatises.

Approximate analytical solutions are presented for two-dimensional and axisymmetric hypersonic flow over slender power law bodies. Both zero-order (M->∞) and first-order (small but nonvanishing values of 1/(Mδ)2) solutions are presented, where M is free-stream Mach number and δ is a characteristic slope. These solutions are compared with exact numerical integrations of the equations of motion and appear to be accurate particularly when the shock is relatively close to the body.

The early modern period was an age of anatomical exploration and revelation, with new discoveries capturing the imagination not only of scientists but also of playwrights and poets. Approximate Bodies examines, in fascinating detail, the changing representation of the body in early modern drama and in the period's anatomical and gynaecological treatises. Maurizio Calbi focuses on the unstable representation of both masculinity and femininity in Renaissance texts such as The Duchess of Malfi, The Changeling and a variety of Shakespeare plays. Drawing on theorists including Foucault, Derrida and Lacan, these close textual readings examine the effects of social, psychic and cultural influences on early modern images of the body. Calbi identifies the ways in which political, social, racial and sexual power structures effect the construction of the body in dramatic and anatomical texts. Calbi's analysis displays how images such as the deformed body of the outsider, the effeminate body of the desiring male and the disfigured body parts of the desiring female indicate an unstable, incomplete conception of the body in the Renaissance. Compelling and impeccably researched, this is a sophisticated account of the fantasies and anxieties that play a role in constructing the early modern body. Approximate Bodies makes a major contribution to the field of early modern studies and to debates around the body.

Summary: Approximate solutions of the nonlinear equations of the small disturbance theory of transonic flow are found for the pressure distribution on pointed slender bodies of revolution for flows with free-stream Mach number 1, and for flows that are either purely subsonic or purely supersonic. These results are obtained by application of a method based on local linearization that was introduced recently in the analysis of similar problems in low-dimensional flows. The theory is developed for bodies of arbitrary shapes, and specific results are given for cone-cylinders and for parabolic-arc bodies at zero angle of attack. All results are compared either with existing theoretical results or with experimental data.