Describing the "Scientifically Incomprehensible": Monstrosities and Normalities
Abstract
In the 19th century the so-called freaks were displayed in public while science constructed its own monstrosities. Both discourses are intimately connected with each other, but are often separated when studied by scholars. Birgit Stammberger succeeds in discussing both discourses together in her cultural philosophical study, which reveals the entanglements between science and popular culture. Based on Michel Foucault’s understanding of discourses, Stammberger analyses academic texts that continuously define and create monstrosities, pathologies, and consequently shape an understanding of normality. The body, as Stammberger shows using the case study of the female sex, is not without a history. Instead, it always serves to define normality and thus reveals society’s attitudes towards race and gender.
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