Freak Inheritance: Eugenics and Extraordinary Bodies in Performance

— —

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson Michael Mark Chemers (Play and Design, at the University of California, University of California, Santa Cruz, Play and Design, at the University of California, University of California, Santa Cruz)

Freak Inheritance

Eugenics and Extraordinary Bodies in Performance

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Michael Mark Chemers (Play and Design, at the University of California, University of California, Santa Cruz, Play and Design, at the University of California, University of California, Santa Cruz), Analola Santana (Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, Dartmouth College)

$63.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Oxford University Press Inc
16 October 2024

Popular culture; Disability: social aspects; Social & cultural anthropology

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

Edited by: Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Michael Mark Chemers (Play and Design, at the University of California, University of California, Santa Cruz, Play and Design, at the University of California, University of California, Santa Cruz), Analola Santana (Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, Dartmouth College)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780197691137
ISBN 10: 0197691137
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 16 October 2024
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

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.

Reviews for Freak Inheritance: Eugenics and Extraordinary Bodies in Performance

"legacy of 'freaks,' those whose bodies do not conform to the cultural norms that define appearance and social value. Both an overview of eugenics, which aims to normalize and regulate bodies and their range of performances, and forms of morphological resistance to eugenics, this is an original and forceful collection on the capacities of extraordinary bodies for creation and defiance, and the external forms of constraint and containment that regulate many of them. Bodies resist what we make of them - they are what they become, whether we understand or identify with them or not. This book addresses such resistance as much as it does this containment."" * Elizabeth Grosz, author of The Incorporeal: Ontology, Ethics and the Limits of Materialism *"