Victorian freaks : the social context of freakery in Britain / edited by Marlene Tromp.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Tromp, Marlene, 1966-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Abnormalities, Human--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Abnormalities, Human.

Freak shows--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Freak shows.

Human body--Social aspects--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Human body.

Congenital Abnormalities--history.

Human body--Social aspects.

History.

United Kingdom.

History, 19th Century.

Social Conditions--history.

Great Britain.

Medical Subjects:

Congenital Abnormalities--history.

United Kingdom.

History, 19th Century.

Social Conditions--history.

Physical Description:

xiii, 328 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Columbus : Ohio State University Press, [2008]

Summary:

Indeed, this period has been described by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson as the epoch of "consolidation" for freakery: an era of social change, enormously popular freak shows, and taxonomic frenzy. Victorian Freaks: The Social Context of Freakery in Britain, edited by Marlene Tromp, turns to that rich nexus, examining the struggle over definitions of "freakery" and the unstable and sometimes conflicting ways in which freakery was understood and deployed. As the first study centralizing British culture, this collection discusses figures as varied as Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man"; Daniel Lambert, "King of the Fat Men"; Julia Pastrana, "The Bear Woman"; and Laloo "The Marvellous Indian Boy" and his embedded, parasitic twin. The Victorian Freaks contributors examine Victorian culture through the lens of freakery, reading the production of the freak against the landscape of capitalist consumption, the medical community, and the politics of empire, sexuality, and art. Collectively, these essays ask how freakery engaged with notions of normalcy and with its Victorian cultural context.

Contents:

Even as you and I : freak shows and lay discourse on spectacular deformity / Heather McHold

Freaklore : the dissemination, fragmentation, and reinvention of the legend of Daniel Lambert, king of fat men / Joyce L. Huff

White wings and six-legged muttons : the freakish animal / Timothy Neil

"Poor Hoo Loo" : sentiment, stoicism, and the grotesque in British imperial medicine / Meegan Kennedy

Elephant talk : language and enfranchisement in the Merrick case / Christine C. Ferguson

The Missing Link and the Hairy Belle : Krao and the Victorian discourses of evolution, imperialism, and primitive sexuality / Nadja Durbach

Empire and the Indian freak : the "Miniature Man" from Cawnpore and the "Marvellous Indian Boy" on tour in England / Marlene Tromp

The Victorian mummy-fetish : H. Rider Haggard, Frank Aubrey, and the white mummy / Kelly Hurley

Our bear women, ourselves : affiliating with Julia Pastrana / Rebecca Stern

Queering the marriage plot : Wilkie Collins's The law and the lady / Martha Stoddard Holmes

Freaks that matter : the dolls' dressmaker, the doctor's assistant, and the limits of difference / Melissa Free

A collaborative aesthetic : Levinas's idea of responsibility and the photographs of Charles Eisenmann and the late nineteenth-century freak-performer / Christopher R. Smit.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780814210864

0814210864

OCLC:

180982652

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description