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Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
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Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture Hardcover - 2009 - 1st Edition

by Nadja Durbach


From the publisher

In 1847, during the great age of the freak show, the British periodical Punch bemoaned the public's "prevailing taste for deformity." This vividly detailed 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. Nadja Durbach examines freaks both well-known and obscure including the Elephant Man; "Lalloo, the Double-Bodied Hindoo Boy," a set of conjoined twins advertised as half male, half female; Krao, a seven-year-old hairy Laotian girl who was marketed as Darwin's "missing link"; the "Last of the Mysterious Aztecs" and African "Cannibal Kings," who were often merely Irishmen in blackface. Upending our tendency to read late twentieth-century conceptions of disability onto the bodies of freak show performers, Durbach shows that these spectacles helped to articulate the cultural meanings invested in otherness--and thus clarified what it meant to be British--at a key moment in the making of modern and imperial ideologies and identities.

From the rear cover

"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

Details

  • Title Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
  • Author Nadja Durbach
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition number 1st
  • Edition 1
  • Pages 288
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher University of California Press, Berkeley, CA
  • Date 2009-10-13
  • Features Bibliography, Dust Cover, Index, Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9780520257689 / 0520257685
  • Weight 1.15 lbs (0.52 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 in (23.37 x 16.00 x 2.54 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Abnormalities, Human - Great Britain -, Freak shows - Great Britain - History - 19th
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2009009244
  • Dewey Decimal Code 616.043

Media reviews

Citations

  • Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/13/2009, Page 18

About the author

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.
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Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture

by Durbach, Nadja

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Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture

Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture

by Nadja Durbach

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Hardback. New. 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.
Item Price
$81.58
$12.71 shipping to USA
The Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

The Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture

by Durbach, Nadja

  • New
  • Hardcover
Condition
New
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 13
9780520257689
ISBN 10
0520257685
Quantity Available
1
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Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom
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This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
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Univ of California Pr, 2009. Hardcover. New. 1st edition. 288 pages. 9.20x6.30x1.00 inches.
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$99.69
$12.77 shipping to USA