DOCSLIB.ORG

How the American Freak Show and Its Literature Redefine the Archive

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
How the American Freak Show and Its Literature Redefine the Archive University of Kentucky UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations--English English 2020 Freakish Taxonomies: How The American Freak Show And Its Literature Redefine The Archive Megan E. Pillow University of Kentucky, [email protected] Author ORCID Identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2996-2871 Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2020.255 Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Pillow, Megan E., "Freakish Taxonomies: How The American Freak Show And Its Literature Redefine The Archive" (2020). Theses and Dissertations--English. 116. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/english_etds/116 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the English at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations--English by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STUDENT AGREEMENT: I represent that my thesis or dissertation and abstract are my original work. Proper attribution has been given to all outside sources. I understand that I am solely responsible for obtaining any needed copyright permissions. I have obtained needed written permission statement(s) from the owner(s) of each third-party copyrighted matter to be included in my work, allowing electronic distribution (if such use is not permitted by the fair use doctrine) which will be submitted to UKnowledge as Additional File. I hereby grant to The University of Kentucky and its agents the irrevocable, non-exclusive, and royalty-free license to archive and make accessible my work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I agree that the document mentioned above may be made available immediately for worldwide access unless an embargo applies. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of my work. I understand that I am free to register the copyright to my work. REVIEW, APPROVAL AND ACCEPTANCE The document mentioned above has been reviewed and accepted by the student’s advisor, on behalf of the advisory committee, and by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), on behalf of the program; we verify that this is the final, approved version of the student’s thesis including all changes required by the advisory committee. The undersigned agree to abide by the statements above. Megan E. Pillow, Student Dr. Marion Rust, Major Professor Dr. Michael Trask, Director of Graduate Studies FREAKISH TAXONOMIES: HOW THE AMERICAN FREAK SHOW AND ITS LITERATURE REDEFINE THE ARCHIVE ________________________________________ DISSERTATION ________________________________________ A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky By Megan E. Pillow Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Marion Rust, Professor of English Lexington, Kentucky 2020 Copyright © Megan E. Pillow 2020 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2996-2871 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION FREAKISH TAXONOMIES: HOW THE AMERICAN FREAK SHOW AND ITS LITERATURE REDEFINE THE ARCHIVE The American freak show, which dominated the entertainment landscape from 1840 to 1940, is considered by some disability studies scholars to be off limits for critical engagement. In Freakish Taxonomies: How the American Freak Show and its Literature Redefine the Archive, I argue that by casting the freak show solely as an exploitative institution, we overlook its capacity to serve as a model for reinterpreting the relationship between literary studies and the archive. By recognizing the freak show not just as an exploitative institution but also as a dynamic archive of marginalized lives—one that utilizes an imperfect, often deceptive taxonomy that makes its flaws wholly visible rather than hiding them—we can explore the freak show's ability to serve as an analytical model for literary studies. In my study, I argue that the freak show and its promotional texts and tools function as a model for close reading not the order, but the gaps and flaws—what I call “freakish taxonomies” —in literature produced during the freak show’s heyday. By applying this model of analysis to texts such as Moby-Dick, The Country of the Pointed Firs, Puddn'head Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins, Of One Blood, and Quicksand, many of which have been classified as failed or flawed by critics, I argue that we can better identify the complex stories of marginalized lives that have sometimes been overlooked in these texts while simultaneously challenging disability studies’ critical contention that novels are “part of a project of middle class hegemony” (Davis 41). As a result of this process of close reading and narrative identification, we can also redefine our understanding of the archive by moving away from the repository model and towards a “liberatory” archive which is more inclusive of the histories of marginalized populations and aligns with the more holistic turns of disability studies and archival studies. KEYWORDS: American Literature, Nineteenth-century literature, Twentieth-century literature, Disability studies, Archival studies Megan E. Pillow (Name of Student) May 8, 2020 Date FREAKISH TAXONOMIES: HOW THE AMERICAN FREAK SHOW AND ITS LITERATURE REDEFINE THE ARCHIVE By Megan E. Pillow Dr._________________________________________ Marion Rust Director of Dissertation Dr.________________ Michael Trask _________________________ Director of Graduate Studies ___________05/08/2020 ______________________________ Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The following dissertation, while an individual work, benefited from the insights and direction of quite a few people, first and foremost, my dissertation committee. My dissertation chair, Dr. Marion Rust, challenged me at every stage of this project and approached my work with the kind of rigor, compassion, and joy that I did not think possible and that I feel privileged to benefit from. Her insights, her patience, and her belief in me were instrumental in helping me finish this project. I could not have done this without her, and I can only hope someday to be the kind of scholar and person that she is. Frank X Walker was my very first writing teacher and mentor, and I have returned to the lessons he taught me time and again over the years for inspiration and to tackle my most difficult writing challenges. This dissertation was the hardest challenge I have faced yet, and I would not have made it to the end of this project without his insights and his support. Dr. Michelle Sizemore taught me more about the structure of academic argument in a single course than I learned in all of graduate school. She was always kind and always thoughtful, and her comments and evaluation at every stage of the dissertation process gave me a global understanding of the strengths and challenges in my larger argument that I would otherwise not have had. I cannot thank Dr. Sizemore enough for her wisdom and her guidance. I first met Dr. Carol Mason in a feminist theory class my second year of graduate school, where she told our class that one of the animating principles for her scholarly researching was getting angry enough to ask “what the fuck?” and then searching for the answer. I knew immediately that I wanted her on my committee, and I’ve used that same approach, as well as Dr. Mason’s incisive feedback, which always seemed to see iii where I was headed with my argument, even when I wasn’t sure myself. I’m also grateful for the assistance of Dr. Michael Trask and Dr. Brenda Brueggemann, two professors who served on my committee through my prospectus stage, and grateful for the dedication of time and energy from Dr. Mónica Díaz, who kindly agreed to be the outside examiner for my doctoral defense. Finally, thanks to my departmental colleague Leslie R. Malland, who so kindly formatted my dissertation to Graduate School specifications. I am deeply grateful to the University of Kentucky English Department and especially to the Graduate Committee for providing me with a Dissertation Semester Fellowship, which gave me much-needed time to work on this project without teaching responsibilities, and a Summer Research Fellowship, which allowed me to write, research, and travel to the New Bedford Whaling Museum during the summer of 2016. I also owe a thank you to librarians Kyle R. Triplett at the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room at the New York Public Library and Mark D. Procknik at the Grimshaw-Gudewicz Reading Room at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Both men assisted me in finding materials related to P.T. Barnum and the nineteenth century whaling industry that provided a great deal of context for this project, and I am deeply grateful for their assistance and their patience with me at every turn. In addition to the technical and instrumental assistance above, I received equally important assistance from family and friends. Kathy Barbour, Dee Goertz, and Melissa Eden, all professors at my alma mater Hanover College and all dear friends of my heart, wrote letters of recommendation for grad school, invited me to campus to teach in their classes and feed me lunch, and offered consistent, loving support through every year of this program, and I am so grateful for them. My ex-husband Jonathan Davis provided iv financial support for the first few years of my doctoral program, and I am grateful for that help and for the help of the Davis family as well. Deirdre Mikolajcik, Valerie Stevens, and Ben Wilson were all supportive during a very difficult period at the end of the dissertation writing process. Robin LaMer Rahija and Kristen Pickett were always available for questions, were always unfailing kind, and they solved so many problems for me during my time at UK that I know I wouldn’t have completed the program without their friendship and their mountains of administrative support.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Rhodes Fallen: Student Activism in Post-Apartheid South Africa
    History in the Making Volume 10 Article 11 January 2017 Rhodes Fallen: Student Activism in Post-Apartheid South Africa Amanda Castro CSUSB Angela Tate CSUSB Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making Part of the African History Commons Recommended Citation Castro, Amanda and Tate, Angela (2017) "Rhodes Fallen: Student Activism in Post-Apartheid South Africa," History in the Making: Vol. 10 , Article 11. Available at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making/vol10/iss1/11 This History in the Making is brought to you for free and open access by the History at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in History in the Making by an authorized editor of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. History in the Making Rhodes Fallen: Student Activism in Post-Apartheid South Africa By Amanda Castro and Angela Tate The Cecil Rhodes statue as a contested space. Photo courtesy of BBC News.1 In early March of 2015, the steely gaze of Cecil Rhodes—ardent imperialist, founder of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), and former Prime Minister of the Cape Colony—surveyed the campus of the University of Cape Town (UCT) through a splatter of feces. It had been collected by student Chumani Maxwele from “one of the portable toilets that dot the often turbulent, crowded townships on the windswept plains outside Cape Town.”2 Maxwele’s actions sparked a campus-wide conversation that spread to other campuses in South Africa. They also joined the global conversations about Black Lives Matter; the demands in the United States to remove Confederate flags and commemorations to Confederate heroes, and the names of racists (including President 1 Andrew Harding, “Cecil Rhodes Monument: A Necessary Anger?,” BBC News, April 11, 2015, accessed March 3, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/ world-africa-32248605.
    [Show full text]
  • Archiving Possibilities with the Victorian Freak Show a Dissertat
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE “Freaking” the Archive: Archiving Possibilities With the Victorian Freak Show A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Ann McKenzie Garascia September 2017 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Joseph Childers, Co-Chairperson Dr. Susan Zieger, Co-Chairperson Dr. Robb Hernández Copyright by Ann McKenzie Garascia 2017 The Dissertation of Ann McKenzie Garascia is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has received funding through University of California Riverside’s Dissertation Year Fellowship and the University of California’s Humanities Research Institute’s Dissertation Support Grant. Thank you to the following collections for use of their materials: the Wellcome Library (University College London), Special Collections and University Archives (University of California, Riverside), James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center (San Francisco Public Library), National Portrait Gallery (London), Houghton Library (Harvard College Library), Montana Historical Society, and Evanion Collection (the British Library.) Thank you to all the members of my dissertation committee for your willingness to work on a project that initially described itself “freakish.” Dr. Hernández, thanks for your energy and sharp critical eye—and for working with a Victorianist! Dr. Zieger, thanks for your keen intellect, unflappable demeanor, and ready support every step of the process. Not least, thanks to my chair, Dr. Childers, for always pushing me to think and write creatively; if it weren’t for you and your Dickens seminar, this dissertation probably wouldn’t exist. Lastly, thank you to Bartola and Maximo, Flora and Martinus, Lalloo and Lala, and Eugen for being demanding and lively subjects.
    [Show full text]
  • Ableism [ Ey-Buh-Liz-Uhm ]
    ableism [ ey-buh-liz-uhm ] noun 1 discrimination against disabled people: laws to prevent ableism, racism, and sexism in the workplace. 2 the tendency to regard people with a disability as incomplete, diminished, or damaged, and to measure the quality of life with a disability against a non-disabled standard: Ableism reinforces the idea that disability is a personal tragedy. Think about it like this: Racism Sexism Ableism What does ableism look like? Some examples: Institutional (Noticeable Ableism) Public buildings without These are the types of things you may already be ramps or elevators aware of because this kind of ableism is often built Refusing reasonable into how our communities are structured. accommodations Institutional ableism can be found in areas such as Inaccessible playgrounds policy, education, employment, and social norms. Wage gaps Lack of representation in Social (Subtle Ableism) the media These types of behaviors may take longer to see Calling people with because people do them without thinking. This form disabilities an inspiration of ableism takes awareness and practice to change, just for being disabled but once you get it, your inclusive behaviors and Slow/baby talk actions will be second nature to you! Unsolicited touch Is ableism really an issue? What can you do? Yes, it is. Ableism is the root of disability inequality. Talk to the experts! People with disabilities It limits access to important things in people’s lives are the best resource to learn about how to like education, employment, healthcare, and voting. treat people with disabilities and what you It also causes people with disabilities to be socially can do to help advocate for change.
    [Show full text]
  • DISABLED WOMEN and REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE Issues
    Home » Get the Facts » Reproductive Justice Issues » Reproductive Justice in Our ... Reproductive Justice DISABLED WOMEN AND REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE Issues by Mia Mingus, Georgians for Choice What is Reproductive Justice? Reproductive Justice in In the United States, a culture of ableism, which maintains that able­bodied Our Communities people are superior and most valuable, prevails. In this culture, disability is Parenting and Giving feared, hated, and typically regarded as a condition that reduces the value of Birth disabled people. The reproductive justice framework helps us understand how eugenic "science" is still a vibrant part of U.S. culture that interacts with and Abortion and Birth Control shapes the reproductive lives of disabled women in many ways. Sex Education Right to Parent Access to Reproductive Health Care Women with disabilities (WWD) have a long history of forced sterilization, are often seen as "unfit" mothers and are discouraged from having children, or not Reproductive allowed to adopt children. Authorities press disabled women to feel guilty for Technologies their decisions to be parents, pointing out that their decision will take a "toll" on Spirituality and ON OUR TERMS their children, families, communities and on themselves. Reproductive Justice THE RISE INITIATIVE Sexuality Sexual Health, Anatomy, and STD's BUILDING THE Society typically defines disabled women as asexual and as dependent on able­ MOVEMENT bodied people, undermining these women's access to reproductive health. In This Section Disabled women and girls often do not receive sex and reproductive health VOLUNTEER Are We Next? Immigrant education. Health care providers may fail to ask WWD about their sexual lives, Rights and Access to AD CAMPAIGNS conduct full pelvic exams or screen WWD for STD/HIV, because it is assumed Health Care that these women do not have sex, or that they should not have sex.
    [Show full text]
  • Body Worlds and the Victorian Freak Show
    “Skinless Wonders”: Body Worlds and the Victorian Freak Show Nadja Durbach Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume 69, Number 1, January 2014, pp. 38-67 (Article) Published by Oxford University Press For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jhm/summary/v069/69.1.durbach.html Access provided by Middlebury College (28 Jul 2014 12:06 GMT) “Skinless Wonders”: Body Worlds and the Victorian Freak Show NADJA DURBACH Department of History, University of Utah, Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building, 215 South Central Campus Drive, Room 310, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112. Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT. In 2002, Gunther von Hagens’s display of plastinated corpses opened in London. Although the public was fascinated by Body Worlds, the media largely castigated the exhibition by dismissing it as a resuscitated Victorian freak show. By using the freak show analogy, the British press expressed their moral objection to this type of bodily display. But Body Worlds and nineteenth-century displays of human anomalies were linked in more complex and telling ways as both attempted to be simultaneously entertaining and educational. This essay argues that these forms of corpo- real exhibitionism are both examples of the dynamic relationship between the popular and professional cultures of the body that we often errone- ously think of as separate and discrete. By reading Body Worlds against the Victorian freak show, I seek to generate a fuller understanding of the his- torical and enduring relationship between exhibitionary culture and the discourses of science, and thus to argue that the scientific and the spectac- ular have been, and clearly continue to be, symbiotic modes of generating bodily knowledge.
    [Show full text]
  • Pynchon's Sound of Music
    Pynchon’s Sound of Music Christian Hänggi Pynchon’s Sound of Music DIAPHANES PUBLISHED WITH SUPPORT BY THE SWISS NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 1ST EDITION ISBN 978-3-0358-0233-7 10.4472/9783035802337 DIESES WERK IST LIZENZIERT UNTER EINER CREATIVE COMMONS NAMENSNENNUNG 3.0 SCHWEIZ LIZENZ. LAYOUT AND PREPRESS: 2EDIT, ZURICH WWW.DIAPHANES.NET Contents Preface 7 Introduction 9 1 The Job of Sorting It All Out 17 A Brief Biography in Music 17 An Inventory of Pynchon’s Musical Techniques and Strategies 26 Pynchon on Record, Vol. 4 51 2 Lessons in Organology 53 The Harmonica 56 The Kazoo 79 The Saxophone 93 3 The Sounds of Societies to Come 121 The Age of Representation 127 The Age of Repetition 149 The Age of Composition 165 4 Analyzing the Pynchon Playlist 183 Conclusion 227 Appendix 231 Index of Musical Instruments 233 The Pynchon Playlist 239 Bibliography 289 Index of Musicians 309 Acknowledgments 315 Preface When I first read Gravity’s Rainbow, back in the days before I started to study literature more systematically, I noticed the nov- el’s many references to saxophones. Having played the instru- ment for, then, almost two decades, I thought that a novelist would not, could not, feature specialty instruments such as the C-melody sax if he did not play the horn himself. Once the saxophone had caught my attention, I noticed all sorts of uncommon references that seemed to confirm my hunch that Thomas Pynchon himself played the instrument: McClintic Sphere’s 4½ reed, the contra- bass sax of Against the Day, Gravity’s Rainbow’s Charlie Parker passage.
    [Show full text]
  • Print This Article
    COPAS—Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies 18.2 (2017) Scars for Life(s) Jessica Suzanne Stokes ABSTRACT: This essay considers the relationship between performance, disability, and the ephemera of wounding experiences by using bodily scars as method for multi-temporal and multi-spatial reflection. Thinking through the “Freak Show” season of the television series American Horror Story, this essay locates coalitional potential in scars as they offer sites from which to create new stories of the past. KEYWORDS: Disability; Scar; Performance; Culture Operation Ephemera Some people take first day of school pictures to document the passage of time. Instead, I have x-rays, photos of blue hairnets that barely cover my head, and more photos of my feet right after the cast is sawed away, right before the stitches or staples come out because the surgeries I had were my father’s surgeries, and my brother’s surgeries and… These photos don’t document time linearly. They aren’t displayed in an album in a particular order. They all sit in one shoe box. Each merges with the next: purple cast fragments, screws lodged in bone, staples in a row, beforeafter while afterbefore, white walls, blue hairnets, hospital blankets, IV drips, purple cast fragments. The scars are reopened by new operations. I’ve lost track of the number of surgeries. I certainly don’t remember the dates (see figure 1). Figure 1. Jessica Stokes’ Foot X-ray, Grand Rapids. Figure 2. Matthew Stokes’ Foot X-ray, Grand Personal x-ray of author. Date unknown. Rapids. Courtesy of owner. Date unknown.
    [Show full text]
  • South African CRIME QUARTERLY No
    South African CRIME QUARTERLY No. 70 | 2021 Hate crime based on disability in South Africa Lessons for law reform Willene Holness1 [email protected] https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3108/2021/vn70a5597 When contemplating whether to introduce disability hate crime as a new substantive offence or as a penalty enhancement of existing crimes, legislators should consider the peculiarities of reporting, investigating and prosecuting hate crimes perpetrated against disabled people. This article argues that existing laws on sexual offences, domestic violence, harassment, and unfair discrimination should be strengthened, and research should be conducted to identify the appropriate initiatives to prevent and attend to disability hate crime by and with persons with disabilities. Creating a substantive hate crime based on disability has symbolic value, but should only be considered if the existing challenges to full and meaningful participation by persons with disabilities in investigative and court proceedings are addressed through appropriate procedural accommodations. Introduction disability, and theft by people close to the victim Hate crimes against persons with disabilities (such as care givers or family members).3 These are victimisations aimed at someone specifically crimes also include ‘bullying, cyber-bullying, because of their disability.2 Such victimisation physical violence, sexual harassment and take various forms, including physical attacks assault, domestic violence, financial exploitation that target disability aids; cruelty, humiliation,
    [Show full text]
  • A Culture of Neglect: Climate Discourse and Disabled People
    University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Cumming School of Medicine Cumming School of Medicine Research & Publications 2009-10-21 A Culture of Neglect: Climate Discourse and Disabled People Wolbring, Gregor M/C Media and Culture http://hdl.handle.net/1880/47465 journal article http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Unported Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca M/C Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2009) - 'climate' Home > Vol. 12, No. 4 (2009) > Gregor Wolbring A Culture of Neglect: Climate Discourse and Disabled People Introduction The scientific validity of climate change claims, how to intervene (if at all) in environmental, economic, political and social consequences of climate change, and the adaptation and mitigation needed with any given climate change scenario, are contested areas of public, policy and academic discourses. For marginalised populations, the climate discourses around adaptation, mitigation, vulnerability and resilience are of particular importance. This paper considers the silence around disabled people in these discourses. Marci Roth of the Spinal Cord Injury Association testified before Congress in regards to the Katrina disaster: [On August 29] Susan Daniels called me to enlist my help because her sister in-law, a quadriplegic woman in New Orleans, had been unsuccessfully trying to evacuate to the Superdome for two days. […] It was clear that this woman, Benilda Caixetta, was not being evacuated. I stayed on the phone with Benilda, for the most part of the day. […] She kept telling me she‟d been calling for a ride to the Superdome since Saturday; but, despite promises, no one came.
    [Show full text]
  • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – Glossary of Terms Ableism
    Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – Glossary of Terms Ableism- discrimination against persons with mental and/or physical disabilities; social structures that favor able-bodied individuals. (The National Multicultural Institute) Acculturation- the process of learning and incorporating the language, values, beliefs, and behaviors that makes up a distinct culture. This concept is not to be confused with assimilation, where an individual or group may give up certain aspects of its culture in order to adapt to that of the prevailing culture. (The National Multicultural Institute) Affirmative Action- proactive policies and procedures for remedying the effect of past discrimination and ensuring the implementation of equal employment and educational opportunities, for recruiting, hiring, training and promoting women, minorities, people with disabilities and veterans in compliance with the federal requirements enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). (Society for Human Resources Management) Ageism- discrimination against individuals because of their age, often based on stereotypes. (The National Multicultural Institute) Ally- a person who takes action against oppression out of a belief that eliminating oppression will benefit members of targeted groups and advantage groups. Allies acknowledge disadvantage and oppression of other groups than their own, take supportive action on their behalf, commit to reducing their own complicity or collusion in oppression of these groups, and invest in strengthening their own knowledge and awareness of oppression. (Center for Assessment and Policy Development) Anti-Oppression - Recognizing and deconstructing the systemic, institutional and personal forms of disempowerment used by certain groups over others; actively challenging the different forms of oppression. (Center for Anti-Oppressive Education) Bias - a positive or negative inclination towards a person, group, or community; can lead to stereotyping.
    [Show full text]
  • Dr. Nario-Redmond's Slides
    SPSSI 2019 Congressional Seminar Ableism: The Causes and Consequences of Disability Prejudice Michelle R. Nario-Redmond, Ph.D. Ableism: The Causes and Consequences of Disability Prejudice (2019) SPSSI: Contemporary Social Issues Series ▪ What does ableism look like? Where does it come from? ▪ Who and what does ableism impact ▪ What solutions to consider The A, B, C’s of Ableism: ▪Attitudes (Emotions / Affective Reactions) ▪Cognitions (Ideologies, Stereotypical Beliefs) ▪Behaviors (Actions, Practices and Policies) Ableism Origins: Iceberg Metaphor Ableism: Evolutionary Origins Ableism: Evolved Disease Avoidance? “Students didn't want to sit by me, they asked to be moved out of my class because they thought they could catch blindness. I hated this time of my life. I cried every day” (2015). Ableism: Existential Origins Disability Threatens Significance Cultural Values Human Uniqueness Ableism: We ARE animals “No person who is Ableism: Ugly Laws diseased, maimed, mutilated or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object or improper person to be allowed in or on the public ways or other places in this city, shall therein or thereon expose himself to public view” – Chicago Municipal Code, 36-34, 1966. Ableism: Dehumanization Disability hate crimes are more common when the perpetrator knows the victim. But police are most likely to drop hate crime charges when there is a preexisting relationship. Documented incidents include being: beaten with one’s crutch, dumped out of wheelchair, set on fire, made to eat feces, overmedicated, sexually assault, raped, murdered (Sherry, 2010) Ableism: Ideological Origins Social Darwinism and Eugenics Meritocratic and Just World Beliefs Biomedical Model of Disability Memorial to the Victims of National Socialist 'Euthanasia' Killings People laying wreaths at the 24 meter long 80 foot tall blue glass monument in Berlin commemorating the 240, 000+ victims with mental and physical disabilities and chronic illnesses killed in the Nazi Euthanasia program.
    [Show full text]
  • Exploitative to Favorable, Freak to Ordinary: The
    EXPLOITATIVE TO FAVORABLE, FREAK TO ORDINARY: THE EVOLUTION OF DISABILITY REPRESENTATION IN FILM By Julia E. Thompson A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate Studies Division of Ohio Dominican University Columbus, Ohio in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH DECEMBER 2015 iii CONTENTS CERTIFICATION PAGE ………………………………………………………………… ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………………………………………………………………. iv CHAPTER 1: A HISTORY OF DISABILITY …………………………………………… 1 CHAPTER 2: FREAK SHOWS AND PHYSICAL DISABILITIES …………………….. 6 CHAPTER 3: DIFFERENT STIGMA: SENSORY DISABILITY ON FILM …………… 15 CHAPTER 4: REGRESSIVE VERSUS PROGRESSIVE DEPICTION ………………… 27 WORKS CITED ………………………………………………………………………….. 35 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank the faculty of the Master of Arts graduate program at Ohio Dominican University. You have opened my mind to the infinite rewards of studying literature, poetry, philosophy, and film. Specifically, I want to thank Dr. Ann Hall for her guidance and encouragement from the very beginning of my journey in the graduate program all the way through to the completion of this thesis. Your support and faith in my abilities allowed me to reach my goal. Also, I would like to thank Dr. Martin Brick for his support and review. My success in the graduate program would not have been possible without the love, support, and unwavering encouragement of my husband, Eric. Thank you for assuming even more of the responsibilities for our children and our home while I worked through the program and this thesis. Thank you also to my children, Celeste and Sawyer, who have been so very patient with me. I hope that my excitement for education influences your own outlook.
    [Show full text]