
Exploring the Cultural History of Continental European Freak Shows and 'Enfreakment'
Anna Kerchy(Herausgeber*in)
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Erschienen am 19. Oktober 2012
Buch
Hardcover
295 Seiten
978-1-4438-4134-4 (ISBN)
Beschreibung
This collection offers cultural historical analyses of enfreakment and freak shows, examining the social construction and spectacular display of wondrous, monstrous, or curious Otherness in the formerly relatively neglected region of Continental Europe. Forgotten stories are uncovered about freak-show celebrities, medical specimen, and philosophical fantasies presenting the anatomically unusual in a wide range of sites, including curiosity cabinets, anatomical museums, and traveling circus acts. The essays explore the locally specific dimensions of the exhibition of extraordinary bodies within their particular historical, cultural and political context. Thus the impact of the Nazi eugenics programs, state Socialism, or the Chernobyl catastrophe is observed closely and yet the transnational dimensions of enfreakment are made obvious through topics ranging from Jesuit missionaries' diabolization of American Indians, to translations of Continental European teratology in British medical journals, and the Hollywood silver screen's colonization of European fantasies about deformity. Although Continental European freaks are introduced as products of ideologically-infiltrated representations, they also emerge as embodied subjects endowed with their own voice, view, and subversive agency.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"The volume is an important contribution to disability studies in general and, it is hoped, will encourage the study of enfreakment beyond European history in a similar collected volume. This fruit of well-grounded research should receive wide attention. Exploring the Cultural History of Continental European Freak Shows and "Enfreakment" is inspirational for broadening study not only beyond the United States but also beyond Europe. It will be of interest to scholars of the many disciplines on which it draws-from anthropology to zoology-and the entire work, or portions from it, could be incorporated with ease into any university-level course. With its engaging style, alluring illustrations, and elegant insights, this enticing and experimental collection will also be of interest to any general reader interested in the human condition."-Professor M. Lynn Rose, Truman State University; H-Disability, December, 2014"The cultural history outlined in this innovative "freak-show studies" volume on Continental Europe offers new perspectives by adopting interdisciplinary approaches interweaving Disability Studies proper with cultural anthropology, philosophy, sociology, museology, popular entertainment research, and trauma studies. A substantial geographical area from Germany and France to Ukraine and Russia is covered by authors who come from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine, and Russia. The theories and methodologies applied are duly diverse, embracing, as the editors claim, "partial perspectives and situated (knowledge)formations [and] refusing to settle for a finalized, objective historical truth and rather opting for keeping the notion of histories in/on move in a relative and dynamic process" (12)."-Professor Eniko Bollobas, Chair of the Department of American Studies, Eoetvoes Lorand University; Americana, 9:1, 2013"The essays in this collection address the issue of how bodily difference was represented in the textual and visual cultures of Continental Europe from the medieval period through the late twentieth century. [...] It is heartening to see that issues of physical difference and disability are being interrogated by scholars working in a variety of disciplines and from a range of geographical locations."-Nadja Durbach, Professor and Associate Chair, Department of History, University of Utah; Disability Studies Quarterly, 34.1, 2014Weitere Details
Auflage
Unabridged edition
Sprache
Englisch
Verlagsort
Newcastle upon Tyne
Großbritannien
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Für Beruf und Forschung
Editions-Typ
Ungekürzte Ausgabe
Produkt-Hinweis
mit Schutzumschlag
Maße
Höhe: 212 mm
Breite: 148 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-4438-4134-4 (9781443841344)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
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Andrea Zittlau Anna Kerchy
Exploring the Cultural History of Continental European Freak Shows and 'Enfreakment'
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02/2013
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Cambridge Scholars Publishing
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Person
Anna Kerchy is a Senior Assistant Professor and a member of the Gender Studies Research Group at the Institute of English and American Studies at the University of Szeged, Hungary. She holds a PhD in Literature from the University of Szeged and a DEA in Semiology from Universite Paris VII. Her monograph Body-Texts in Angela Carter: Writing from a Corporeagraphic Point of View (2008) offers a corporeal narratological analysis of self-enfreaked embodiments' feminist potentials. One of her major research interests centers on the figure of the freak in Victorian and postmodern fantastic imagination, and intermedial cultural representations.Andrea Zittlau is an Assistant Professor in the Department for American Studies and a Coordinator of the Graduate School program "Cultural Encounters and Discourses of Scholarship" at the University of Rostock, Germany. She wrote her PhD thesis about the representation of Native American cultures in ethnographic museums. Her current research concentrates on ethnographic and medical museums, as well as on freakery and the medical body.