The Body, Medicine, and the Culture of Biofuturity in American Literature, 1883-1928
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Degeneration Nation: The Body, Medicine, and the Culture of Biofuturity in American Literature, 1883-1928 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Michelle Ann Stuckey Committee in charge: Professor Michael Davidson, Chair Professor Lisa Cartwright Professor Stephanie Jed Professor Nicole Tonkovich Professor Don Wayne Professor Meg Wesling 2010 Copyright Michelle Ann Stuckey, 2010 All Rights Reserved. The dissertation of Michelle Ann Stuckey is approved, and is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2010 iii DEDICATION For my dad, James George Stuckey, who knew how to tell a story. June 15, 1946 – June 29, 1993 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………………... iii Dedication…………………………………………………………………………. iv Table of Contents…………………………………………………………….......... v Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………........... vii Vita………………………………………………………………………………… x Abstract……………………………………………………………………….......... xiii Introduction: Biofuturity and the American Literary Imagination, 1883-1928…………………………………......... 1 Biofuturity and the Realist Novel…………………………………………. 11 Eugenics and the Culture of Biofuturity…………………………………… 17 Gender and Reproduction…………………………………………………. 22 Emancipation, Immigration, and the Culture of Biofuturity………………. 27 Chapter Overview………………………………………………………….. 31 “The Best Kind of People”: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Biofuturity, and the Panama Pacific International Exposition…………………………………………... 37 Introduction………………………………………………………………… 37 Eugenics, Nativism, and the National Body……………………………….. 47 In Sickness and in Health: Imagining National Biofutures………………... 64 Hygienic Modernity: U.S. Imperialism, Masculinity, and National Health………………………………………….. 74 Reimagining the Gender of Imperialism in Herland………………………. 81 Reproducing the Eugenic Body……………………………………………. 91 Biofuturity at the Panama Pacific International Exposition……………….. 99 Imperial Simulacra…………………………………………………………. 108 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 113 Hysterical Reconstructions: “Curing” Racial Ambiguity and Re-Imagining the Black Family in the Work of Frances E.W. Harper, Pauline Hopkins, and Charles Chestnutt................................................................... 115 Racial Definitions: An American Obsession……………………………… 124 Fit for Uplift: Biofuturity and the New Negro………………………........... 129 Reconstructing Hysteria: American Nervousness on the Color Line………………………………… 135 The Hysterical Mulatta…………………………………………………….. 140 Iola Leroy: Or Shadows Uplifted………………………………….. 140 v Of One Blood…………………………………………………......... 152 The Marrow of Tradition…………………………………………... 159 Racial Medicine……………………………………………………............. 163 Black Physicians Make Good Husbands…………………………………... 171 The Ruined Hospital………………………………………………………. 185 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 190 Melancholy Genealogies: Reproducing the Dysgenic Family in Edith Wharton’s Summer and Edith Summers Kelley’s Weeds…………………… 191 Realism, Naturalism, and the Biopolitics of Representation……………… 194 The Hill Folk: The Making of Dysgenic Americans……………………… 197 Wharton and Eugenics…………………………………………………….. 206 “They Ain’t Half Human up There”: Summer and the Mountain Folk........ 208 Daughters of Toil…………………………………………………………... 220 Feeble Futures ……………………………………………………………... 227 Fitter Families and the Mass Culture of Eugenics………………………… 229 References………………………………………………………………………. 233 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The researching and writing of a dissertation can be lonely and isolating. However, becoming a scholar happens within a community, and I am very grateful to my community at the University of California, San Diego—and beyond—for helping to shape my academic self. First and foremost, I want to thank my generous advisor, Michael Davidson, whose rigorous intellect is consistently coupled with kindness and humor. From Michael, I have learned how to be not only a better writer and critic but also, and perhaps most importantly, a better teacher. His work on the body and disability studies is inspired and influenced this project in many ways. Along with Michael, I also want to thank Stephanie Jed, who has given me support, encouragement, and friendship during my long journey at UCSD and through several iterations of my academic persona. She has been generous with her time and feedback and is a model for collegiality. Stephanie’s important and unique work has enriched my understanding of our relations as academics to the archive and to history. Along with Michael and Stephanie, my committee members have been wonderful sources of support. I owe much to Don Wayne for encouraging my interest in critical theory, especially Marxist critique, and for his generous support over the years. Lisa Cartwright’s work on medical technologies and visual culture has also had an important influence on my project. I thank her for generously giving of her time and feedback, and for the important critical sources she contributed to this project. I also thank Meg Wesling and Nicole Tonkavich. Meg’s approach to American Studies is fresh and exciting, and I vii learned much from her method of both doing and teaching cultural studies. I also thank Nicole for her insights into writing and her unique approach to domesticity and gender. I also want to recognize the important influence of Masao Miyoshi, with whom I was fortunate enough to have my first graduate seminar at UCSD. That seminar was foundational for me, and his presence in our department is truly missed. Pasquale Verdicchio was also a supportive intellectual comrade, and I appreciate his keen insights and our many conversations. I acknowledge the amazing work of the Literature Department’s administrative staff, especially Dawn Blessman, Thom Hill, and Nancy Daly. Dawn in particular has made the impossible happen more than once, and always with a smile. I was able to travel to archives and conferences because of generous funding from my department. I also want to thank the University of California Humanities Research Institute and Smith College for travel grants. California Cultures in Comparative Perspective and Frida Daum Urey also contributed funding to this project, for which I am very grateful. My studies at UCSD would have been much less fruitful had it not been for my fellow travelers Benjamin Balthasar, Carlos Martell, Kate Teffer, John Higgins, and Scott Baum. Their friendship, laughter, and inspired conversations were in many ways the lifeblood of my graduate studies. I also want to thank Rebecca Kinney, Adam Lewis, and Sabrina Starnaman for giving me astute and invaluable feedback on drafts of this project. Thanks to my old copyeditor companion Marie Notarangelo for helping me out with essential, last-minute proofreading. To my dear friends Carrie Clark, Lily Chou, Jee Young viii Kim, Sophine Lim, Robin Rabinowitz, and Morgan Parker, thank you all for helping me stay grounded and reminding me there is interesting and stimulating life outside the academy. Thanks to my brother Jimmy Stuckey, who during this process gave me much- needed distraction in the form of cold beer and barbeque, and to his beautiful children Kelsey, Zack, and Tyson, whose laughter and playfulness give me great joy. Thank you to my wonderful mom, Marti Stuckey, and her husband David Iuli for always being there for me. I am grateful to my mom for passing on her critical skills, and for all of her love and support. Finally, I think my partner in love and friendship, Philip Stephens, for his patience, his love, and his light heartedness. ix CURRICULUM VITAE 2010 Residential Research Postdoctoral Fellow University of California Humanities Research Institute University of California, Irvine 2010 Doctor of Philosophy, Literature University of California, San Diego 2009 California Studies Consortium Travel Grant University of California Humanities Research Institute University of California, Irvine 2009 Teaching Assistant, Eleanor Roosevelt College Composition Program University of California, San Diego 2009 Graduate Summer Fellow California Cultures in Comparative Perspective University of California, San Diego 2009 Margaret Storrs Grierson Travel-to-Collections Grant, Smith College 2009 Research Travel Grant Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego 2008 Dissertation Fellowship Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego 2008 Frieda Daum Urey Academic Fellowship 2008 Teaching Assistant, Department of Literature University of California, San Diego 2008 Instructor, “Environmental Justice in U.S. Literature and Culture” Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego 2007 Research Assistant to Don Wayne, Chair Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego 2007 Research Assistant to Stephanie Jed, Professor Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego 2007 Master of Arts, Literature University of California, San Diego x 2003-2007 Teaching Assistant, Thurgood Marshall College Composition Program University of California, San Diego 1997 Bachelor of Arts, Comparative Literature University of California, Berkeley 1997 Bachelor of Arts, Italian Studies University of California, Berkeley RESEARCH AND TEACHING AREAS U.S. literature and culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Feminist science and technology studies Critical gender and race studies U.S. multiethnic literature Disability studies Environmental studies/Environmental