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Zusatztext "Spectacle of Deformity is a detailed and provocative history of the Victorian freak show in Great Britain." Informationen zum Autor Nadja Durbach is Associate Professor of History at the University of Utah. She is the author of Bodily Matters: The Anti Vaccination Movement in England! 1853-1907. Klappentext "Nadja Durbach's work generates fresh insights on familiar phenomena such as the Elephant Man! but pushes its enquiry substantially further! extracting significant conclusions from other sensational but hitherto critically unplumbed wonders of the showman's world in the nineteenth century. An excellent piece of historical research."-Peter Bailey! author of Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian City Zusammenfassung In 1847, during the great age of the freak show, the British periodical Punch bemoaned the public's 'prevailing taste for deformity'. This work argues that far from being purely exploitative, displays of anomalous bodies served a deeper social purpose as they generated popular and scientific debates over the meanings attached to bodily difference. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Exhibiting Freaks 1. Monstrosity! Masculinity! and Medicine: Reexamining "the Elephant Man" 2. Two Bodies! Two Selves! Two Sexes: Conjoined Twins and "the Double-Bodied Hindoo Boy 3. The Missing Link and the Hairy Belle: Evolution! Imperialism! and "Primitive" Sexuality 4. Aztecs and Earthmen: Declining Civilizations and Dying Races 5. "When the Cannibal King Began to Talk": Performing Race! Class! and Ethnicity Conclusion / The Decline of the Freak Show Notes Bibliography
