Freak Inheritance

ISBN 10: 0197691137 / ISBN 13: 9780197691137

Editore: Oxford University Press Inc, 2024

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The long-awaited follow-up to Garland-Thomson's field-defining book Freakery, Freak Inheritance illuminates the convergence of the freak show era with the eugenics era, explicating the cultural work of the freak show as a compelling range of performances of cultural and social Others that emerge as eugenic targets from the late 19th century into the 20th century and beyond. This book explores the wildly popular performances that told compelling stories about categories of people that scientific and social-scientific discourses increasingly described - and sometimes still describe - as biologically inferior. Although much work has emerged recently about the history of eugenics, this collection highlights the specific ways that modes of exaggerated commercial popular performances create a public conversation that mirrors pathological narratives of human difference that are now firmly established as the categories of normal and abnormal, healthy and diseased, beneficial and harmful. This connection between narratives of freakery and normalcy gesture towards a fuller understanding of how eugenic thinking has re-emerged strongly as a force in medical science and cultural thinking aimed at producing the supposed "best" and "most useful" kinds of people.

Codice articolo LU-9780197691137

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Freak Inheritance
• Editore: Oxford University Press Inc
• Data di pubblicazione: 2024
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0197691137
• ISBN 13: 9780197691137
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: New
• Peso: 612 grammi

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

The long-awaited follow-up to Garland-Thomson's field-defining book Freakery, Freak Inheritance illuminates the convergence of the freak show era with the eugenics era, explicating the cultural work of the freak show as a compelling range of performances of cultural and social Others that emerge as eugenic targets from the late 19th century into the 20th century and beyond.

This book explores the wildly popular performances that told compelling stories about categories of people that scientific and social-scientific discourses increasingly described - and sometimes still describe - as biologically inferior. Although much work has emerged recently about the history of eugenics, this collection highlights the specific ways that modes of exaggerated commercial popular performances create a public conversation that mirrors pathological narratives of human difference that are now firmly established as the categories of normal and abnormal, healthy and diseased, beneficial and harmful. This connection between narratives of freakery and normalcy gesture towards a fuller understanding of how eugenic thinking has re-emerged strongly as a force in medical science and cultural thinking aimed at producing the supposed “best” and “most useful” kinds of people.

Informazioni sull?autore

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is Professor Emerita at Emory University.

Michael Mark Chemers is Professor and Chair, Department of Performance, Play and Design, at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Analola Santana is Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, Dartmouth College.