Download or read book Giants Dwarfs and Other Oddities written by Charles John Samuel Thompson and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 1989-06 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Lives of Dwarfs written by Betty M. Adelson and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Lives of Dwarfs is extraordinary in its range and vision. Beautifully written. Totally absorbing."--Ursula Hegi, author of Stones from the River "As a little person, husband, and father of a little person, I dream of the day when dwarfs attain full acceptance in society. The Lives of Dwarfs provides a giant step in that direction."--Rick Spiegel, former president of Little People of America "This important book makes it possible for both average- and short-statured people to challenge our collective understanding of dwarfism as a synonym for diminishment or as an array of cute and evil fairy-tale figures. The libratory work of this book is to invite us all to reimagine dwarfism as a livable experience and tenable way of being in the world."--Rosemarie Garland Thomson, author of Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature "A work of compassionate scholarship. A unique contribution to the literature of physical deformity and social isolation and a gift to the individuals whose personal struggle this is."--Linda Hunt, actor Historically, they have borne the labels "freaks" and "oddities"; they have been collected as pets, displayed as spectacles, and treated as comic relief. Now, for the first time, in this elegant and comprehensive volume, the lives of dwarfs are explored in all their fullness and humanity. Spanning the centuries from ancient Egypt to the present, this unique social history chronicles the various ways this population has been exploited, describes their strategies for coping, and notes the persistent influence of mythology upon perceptions of them by others. The narrative also highlights the lives of eminent individuals and contains a thought-provoking account of the representation and participation of dwarfs in the arts, enhanced by outstanding color photographs. Betty M. Adelson, the mother of a daughter with dwarfism, brings special insight and sensitivity to the research. She traces the widespread mistreatment of dwarfs over the centuries, engendered by their being viewed as curiosities rather than as human beings capable of the same accomplishments as people of average height, and deserving of the same pleasures. For much of their history, dwarfs have resorted to exhibiting themselves: because of social stigma no other employment was available. Only in recent years have short-statured individuals begun to challenge their position in society. Medical advances, new economic opportunities, and disability legislation have led to progress, mainly in Western nations. Advocacy groups have also formed in countries as diverse as Chile, South Korea, and Nigeria. Adelson compares what she refers to as the "small revolution" to similar social and cultural awakenings that women, African Americans, gays and lesbians, and persons with disabilities experienced when they identified themselves as a community with shared goals and obstacles. Written with passion, grace, and the dignity that the subject deserves, The Lives of Dwarfs will not only revolutionize current perceptions about the historically misrepresented dwarf population, but also offer pause for thought on issues of disability, medical treatment, height, beauty, and identity.
Download or read book Freak Show written by Robert Bogdan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-12-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This cultural history of the travelling freak show in America chronicles the rise and fall of the industry as attitudes about disability evolved. From 1840 until 1940, hundreds of freak shows crisscrossed the United States, from the smallest towns to the largest cities, exhibiting their casts of dwarfs, giants, Siamese twins, bearded ladies, savages, snake charmers, fire eaters, and other oddities. By today’s standards such displays would be considered cruel and exploitative—the pornography of disability. Yet for one hundred years the freak show was widely accepted as one of America’s most popular forms of entertainment. Robert Bogdan’s fascinating social history brings to life the world of the freak show and explores the culture that nurtured and, later, abandoned it. In uncovering this neglected chapter of show business, he describes in detail the flimflam artistry behind the shows, the promoters and the audiences, and the gradual evolution of public opinion from awe to embarrassment. Freaks were not born, Bogdan reveals; they were manufactured by the amusement world, usually with the active participation of the freaks themselves. Many of the "human curiosities" found fame and fortune, until the ascent of professional medicine transformed them from marvels into pathological specimens.
Download or read book Secrets of the Sideshows written by Joe Nickell and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2005-09-09 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Joe Nickell - once a carnival pitchman, then a magician, private detective, and investigative writer - has pursued sideshow secrets for years and has worked the famous carnival midway at the Canadian National Exhibition. For this book, he interviewed showmen and performers, collected carnival memorabilia, researched published accounts of sideshows and their lore, and even performed some classic sideshow feats, such as eating fire and lying on a bed of nails as a cinderblock was broken on his chest. The result of these varied efforts, Secrets of the Sideshows tells the captivating story of the magic, tricks - real or illusory - and performers of the world's midway shows."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book American Sideshow written by Marc Hartzman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-09-21 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating look into the history of the American sideshow and its performers. Learn what's real, what's fake, and what's just downright bizarre. You've probably heard of Tom Thumb. The Elephant Man. Perhaps even Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins. But what about Eli Bowen, the legless acrobat? Or Prince Randian, the human torso? These were just a few of the many stars that shone during the heyday of the American sideshow, from 1840 to 1950. American Sideshow chronicles the lives of truly amazing performers, examining these brave and extraordinary curiosities not just as sideshow performers but as people, delving into the lives they led and the ways they were able to triumph over and even benefit from their abnormalities. American Sideshow discusses the rise and fall of the original sideshows and their subsequent replacement by today's self-made freaks. With the progress of modern medicine, technological advancements, and the wonderful world of body modification, abnormalities are being overcome, treated and even prevented: Siamese twins can now be separated, and in addition to this, tongues can be forked, horns surgically implanted, and earlobes removed. There are also, of course, modern-day giants, fire eaters, sword swallowers, glass eaters, human blockheads, and oh, so much more. These fascinating personalities are celebrated through intimate biographies paired with stunning photographs. Approximately two hundred performers from the past one hundred and sixty years are featured, giving readers a comprehensive and sometimes astonishing look into the history of the American sideshow
Download or read book The Mystery Chronicles written by Joe Nickell and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2010-09-12 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a foreword by James Randi Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell has spent more than thirty years solving the world's most perplexing mysteries. This new casebook reveals the secrets of the Winchester Mystery House, the giant Nazca drawings of Peru, the Shroud of Turin, the "Mothman" enigma, the Amityville Horror house, the vicious goatsucking El Chupacabras, and numerous other "unexplainable" paranormal phenomena. Nickell has traveled far and wide to solve cases, which include a weeping icon in Russia, the elusive Bigfoot-like "yowie" in Australia, the reputed power of a headless saint in Spain, and an "alien hybrid" in Germany. He has gone undercover—often in disguise—to reveal the tricks of those who pretend to talk to the dead, accompanied a Cajun guide into a Louisiana swamp in search of a fabled monster, and gained an audience with a voodoo queen. Superstar psychic medium John Edward, pet psychic Sonya Fitzpatrick, evangelist and healer Benny Hinn, and many other well-known figures have found themselves under Nickell's careful scrutiny. The Mystery Chronicles examines more than three dozen intriguing mysteries. Nickell uses a hands-on approach and the scientific method to steer between the extremes of mystery mongering and debunking. His investigative skills have won him both acclaim and controversy during his long career as one of the world's foremost paranormal investigators.
Download or read book They Would Be Gods written by Anthony K. Forwood and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2011 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Whispers written by Ronald K. Siegel and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1996-02-09 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a mesmerizing journey into mental illness, the author of Intoxication and Fire in the Brain captures the suspicion, terror, and rage that possess the minds of paranoids. "Horrifying and utterly fascinating . . . a hard book to put down".--Bettyann Kline, Los Angeles Times.
Download or read book Everybody Belongs written by Arthur Shapiro and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evil prosthesis of Captain Hook, the comical speech of Porky Pig, and the bumbling antics of Mr. Magoo are all examples of images in our culture which can become the basis of negative attitudes and subliminal prejudice towards persons with disabilities. These attitudes influence and underlie discriminatory acts, resulting in negative treatment and segregation. A teacher's ability to recognize and counter such images may well determine the success of inclusion and mainstreaming programs in our schools and society. Well-researched and well-written, this book offers practical guidance as grounded in solid research to schools that are wrestling with how to mainstream children with disabilities.
Download or read book Fifty Favourite Operas written by Paul England and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Historical Affects and the Early Modern Theater written by Ronda Arab and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of original essays honors the groundbreaking scholarship of Jean E. Howard by exploring cultural and economic constructions of affect in the early modern theater. While historicist and materialist inquiry has dominated early modern theater studies in recent years, the historically specific dimensions of affect and emotion remain underexplored. This volume brings together these lines of inquiry for the first time, exploring the critical turn to affect in literary studies from a historicist perspective to demonstrate how the early modern theater showcased the productive interconnections between historical contingencies and affective attachments. Considering well-known plays such as Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday together with understudied texts such as court entertainments, and examining topics ranging from dramatic celebrity to women’s political agency to the parental emotion of grief, this volume provides a fresh and at times provocative assessment of the "historical affects"—financial, emotional, and socio-political—that transformed Renaissance theater. Instead of treating history and affect as mutually exclusive theoretical or philosophical contexts, the essays in this volume ask readers to consider how drama emplaces the most personal, unspeakable passions in matrices defined in part by financial exchange, by erotic desire, by gender, by the material body, and by theatricality itself. As it encourages this conversation to take place, the collection provides scholars and students alike with a series of new perspectives, not only on the plays, emotions, and histories discussed in its pages, but also on broader shifts and pressures animating literary studies today.
Download or read book Disability Studies and the Inclusive Classroom written by Susan Baglieri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-04-21 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disability Studies and the Inclusive Classroom is a core textbook that integrates knowledge and practice from the fields of disability studies and special education. The second edition has been fully revised and updated throughout to include stronger connections between race, class, sexual orientation, gender, and disability to emphasize intersecting identities and experiences; stronger emphasis on curriculum and teaching rather than on attitudes toward disability; and updates to current events, cultural references, resources, research literature, laws, and policies.
Download or read book Conjoined Twins written by Christine Quigley and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-17 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When two human ova fail to fully separate during pregnancy, the result is conjoined twins. The twins may be connected by ligament, bone, or just flesh, and they often share organs, but what captures most people's interest is whether the twins share sensations, thoughts and even souls. This encyclopedia presents entries on conjoined twins throughout history, the biological causes and effects of twins being born conjoined, and ethical issues such as self-support and separation surgery. It also includes entries on the modern standardized terminology used when discussing conjoined twins, the categories into which conjoined twins have been sorted, doctors past and present who have performed separation surgeries, and hospitals, such as Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, that are known for the separation of conjoined twins. This book even covers fraudulent conjoined twins and fictional ones in books written by such authors as Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabakov, and Katherine Dunn. Other entries cover relevant films, websites, and institutions.
Download or read book Entertainment in the Old West written by Jeremy Agnew and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Miners, loggers, railroad men, and others flooded into the American West after the discovery of gold in 1848, and entertainers seeking to fill the demand for distraction from the workers' daily toil soon followed. Actors, actresses and traveling troupes crisscrossed the American frontier, performing in tents, saloons, fancy theaters, and the open air. This exploration of the heyday of popular theater in the Old West chronicles its emergence and growth from 1850 to the early twentieth century. Here is the story of the men and women who provided myriad types of entertainment in the Old West, and brought excitement, laughter and tears to generations of pioneers.
Download or read book Gulliver in the Land of Giants written by Ms Anna Grzeskowiak-Krwawicz and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-07-28 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Józef Boruwlaski was the most famous dwarf of the Enlightenment age. Polish-born, he travelled extensively throughout Europe, appearing and performing at royal courts and salons, before settling in Durham in his later life until his death at the age of 97. He was described in Diderot's Encyclopédie and the press of his day - both on the continent and in the UK - sustained an interest in him and kept tabs on his life and experiences. His memoirs, published in a bilingual (French and English) version in 1788, show him to have been an intelligent and sharp observer of the world he inhabited. The life story of this miniature gentleman is not only highly interesting in its own right, but also offers a new perspective on the culture of the Enlightenment. Through a meticulous survey of source materials in Poland, France, and the United Kingdom, the author has managed to unearth and reconstruct many heretofore unknown details about Boruwlaski's life and adventures, about his travels first on the continent and then in the United Kingdom. It is not typical biography, but rather an attempt at identifying certain social roles that were imposed upon Boruwlaski: a plaything of the salons, a source of entertainment for the masses, an adventurist against his own wishes. At the same time, his story is that of a man who spent his whole life trying to escape from such roles imposed upon him. Boruwlaski's memoirs are included in full, containing many of the letters he sent to his wife, with critical annotation. The author also investigates for the first time the sizeable differences between the many different versions of the memoirs published during his own lifetime. This monograph offers not only an opportunity to rediscover the fascinating life story of an intriguing man, but also gives a unique point of view on Europe's uppermost elite in the Enlightenment age - as people who remained deeply fascinated with deformities and oddities despite their own self-professed 'refined' tastes.
Download or read book The Horror Horn written by E. F. Benson and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015-01-14 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary collection of 31 short stories of the supernatural and the weird from E. F. Benson, one of the greatest horror and fantasy writers.
Download or read book Skulls and Skeletons written by Christine Quigley and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of the parts of the human body, the bones have a unique durability that lends itself to collection. Provided a body has not been cremated, the skeletal remains can be recovered even millions of years after death, cleaned of flesh and debris, studied at length, and stored indefinitely without the maintenance that wet specimens require. Motivations for collecting human skeletal material range from the practical (in anthropology, medicine, forensics) to the ritualistic (phrenology, in the relics of martyrs and saints). This book is an examination of those motivations and the collections they have brought about--catacombs, ossuaries, mass graves, prehistoric excavations, private collections, and institutions. The book contains sections on procuring, handling, storing, transporting, cleaning, and identifying skeletal remains. The repatriation of remains and legislation covering the topic are also addressed.
