Anti-Eugenics Theory and Practice in the Twentieth-Century United States M Sklaroff

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Sklaroff, M., author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Political Science., degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

0453.

0578.

0615.

0626.

0733.

Local Subjects:

0453.

0578.

0615.

0626.

0733.

Physical Description:

1 electronic resource (240 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertations Abstracts International 87-07A

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2025

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This dissertation offers a new understanding of eugenics and the liberatory possibilities of anti-eugenics, developing contributions for the political theory of dependency and feminist understandings of epistemology. It begins by investigating the turn from scientific racism to scientific sexism in eugenics in the United States. Instead of fading with the fall of the organized eugenics movement, eugenicists still pursued eugenic goals but under other names, such as developing marriage counseling practices and pursuing restrictive reproductive practices in the name of population control. Against this background, this work theorizes a liberatory theory of anti-eugenics through studying the history of resistance to sterilization abuse. It first develops a material politics of anti-eugenics through examining the role of reproductive justice in the welfare rights movement. Combating the eugenicist vilifying and biologizing idea of dependency, welfare rights organizers argued for their right to financial dependency alongside bodily autonomy. The dissertation then turns to epistemology to understand why changes to informed consent policy might aid in anti-eugenic politics. Drawing on research done at the UCLA Chicano Studies Library and feminist epistemologists, I develop the notion of an anti-eugenic standpoint. Finally, in order to develop this emancipatory understanding of anti-eugenics it also looks at the discursive uptake of anti-eugenics by the conservative movement in the United States. I trace the intellectual and historical lineages between the eugenics movement and anti-abortion Evangelical politics in the 1970s and onward. The dissertation concludes by looking at the ways in which eugenics continues to shape our political moment today and the renewed need for an expansive anti-eugenic resistance

Notes:

Advisors: Hirschmann, Nancy Committee members: Smith, Rogers M.; Green, Jeffrey

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-07, Section: A.

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2025

Vendor supplied data

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9798276001173

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license