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Book Cover
E-book
Author Durbach, Nadja, 1971-

Title Spectacle of deformity : freak shows and modern British culture / Nadja Durbach
Published Berkeley : University of California Press, ©2010

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 273 pages) : illustrations
Contents Cover -- Table of Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Monstrosity, Masculinity, and Medicine -- 2. Two Bodies, Two Selves, Two Sexes -- 3. The Missing Link and the Hairy Belle -- 4. Aztecs and Earthmen -- 5. "When the Cannibal King Began to Talk" -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary 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 wh
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Abnormalities, Human -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
Freak shows -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
Human body -- Social aspects -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
Congenital Abnormalities -- history
History, 19th Century
PERFORMING ARTS -- Circus.
HISTORY -- Europe -- General.
Abnormalities, Human.
Freak shows.
Human body -- Social aspects.
SUBJECT United Kingdom
Subject Great Britain.
Genre/Form History.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780520944893
0520944895
1282359975
9781282359970