Christine Rosen
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195156799
- eISBN:
- 9780199835218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515679X.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter traces the interaction of some of the earliest Protestant and Catholic supporters of the eugenics movement, and describes the earliest efforts to form an institutional eugenics movement. ...
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This chapter traces the interaction of some of the earliest Protestant and Catholic supporters of the eugenics movement, and describes the earliest efforts to form an institutional eugenics movement. Ministers such as Rev. Oscar Carleton McCulloch and Samuel Zane Batten, for example, married Protestant Social Gospel rhetoric with eugenic sentiment in their efforts to control the “menace of the feebleminded” through social policies. Their efforts were mirrored by those of two prominent British Protestant ministers, Rev. Frederick Brotherton Meyer and Rev. James H.F. Peile. At the same time, biologist Charles Davenport was beginning to develop eugenics institutions such as the Eugenics Record Office, trying to control a movement that had already gained a number of amateur enthusiasts who published books and tracts supporting eugenics — many of which invoked biblical justification for eugenic science. Finally, this chapter explores early debates among Catholics such as Fr. Stephen M. Donovan, Msgr. Jules DeBecker, and Father Thomas Gerrard about eugenic sterilization of the feebleminded.Less
This chapter traces the interaction of some of the earliest Protestant and Catholic supporters of the eugenics movement, and describes the earliest efforts to form an institutional eugenics movement. Ministers such as Rev. Oscar Carleton McCulloch and Samuel Zane Batten, for example, married Protestant Social Gospel rhetoric with eugenic sentiment in their efforts to control the “menace of the feebleminded” through social policies. Their efforts were mirrored by those of two prominent British Protestant ministers, Rev. Frederick Brotherton Meyer and Rev. James H.F. Peile. At the same time, biologist Charles Davenport was beginning to develop eugenics institutions such as the Eugenics Record Office, trying to control a movement that had already gained a number of amateur enthusiasts who published books and tracts supporting eugenics — many of which invoked biblical justification for eugenic science. Finally, this chapter explores early debates among Catholics such as Fr. Stephen M. Donovan, Msgr. Jules DeBecker, and Father Thomas Gerrard about eugenic sterilization of the feebleminded.
Christine Rosen
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195156799
- eISBN:
- 9780199835218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515679X.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter explores the creation and growth of the American Eugenics Society, whose energetic efforts to woo religious supporters met with remarkable success throughout the 1920s. The chapter ...
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This chapter explores the creation and growth of the American Eugenics Society, whose energetic efforts to woo religious supporters met with remarkable success throughout the 1920s. The chapter describes the Society’s Committee on Cooperation with Clergymen, headed by Rev. Henry Strong Huntington, which counted many prominent religious leaders as members, as well as the Society’s multiple “eugenic sermon contests,” which drew enthusiastic entrants from across the country and from a wide denominational spectrum. The chapter traces the participation of religious leaders such as Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Bishop William Lawrence, Rev. Guy Emery Shipler, Rev. Phillips Endecott Osgood, Bishop Francis John McConnell, and Rabbis Louis Mann and David de Sola Pool. It also describes the successful efforts of the society’s most skilled eugenics propagandist, Albert Edward Wiggam.Less
This chapter explores the creation and growth of the American Eugenics Society, whose energetic efforts to woo religious supporters met with remarkable success throughout the 1920s. The chapter describes the Society’s Committee on Cooperation with Clergymen, headed by Rev. Henry Strong Huntington, which counted many prominent religious leaders as members, as well as the Society’s multiple “eugenic sermon contests,” which drew enthusiastic entrants from across the country and from a wide denominational spectrum. The chapter traces the participation of religious leaders such as Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Bishop William Lawrence, Rev. Guy Emery Shipler, Rev. Phillips Endecott Osgood, Bishop Francis John McConnell, and Rabbis Louis Mann and David de Sola Pool. It also describes the successful efforts of the society’s most skilled eugenics propagandist, Albert Edward Wiggam.
Christine Rosen
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195156799
- eISBN:
- 9780199835218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515679X.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Although engaged in questioning the precepts of the eugenics movement from its inception, Catholic leaders’ interest in the movement reached its apogee in the late 1920s, when the twin issues of ...
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Although engaged in questioning the precepts of the eugenics movement from its inception, Catholic leaders’ interest in the movement reached its apogee in the late 1920s, when the twin issues of compulsory sterilization and birth control came to dominate the debate over eugenics. Through an examination of the work of Rev. John A. Ryan and Rev. John M. Cooper, two Catholic leaders who were once members of the American Eugenics Society, this chapter describes the intellectual journey of the Catholics who eventually became the eugenics movement’s most fervent opponents. It reviews Catholic debate about eugenic sterilization, the reaction to Margaret Sanger’s fledgling birth control movement, and the lay and clerical reaction to Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubi.Less
Although engaged in questioning the precepts of the eugenics movement from its inception, Catholic leaders’ interest in the movement reached its apogee in the late 1920s, when the twin issues of compulsory sterilization and birth control came to dominate the debate over eugenics. Through an examination of the work of Rev. John A. Ryan and Rev. John M. Cooper, two Catholic leaders who were once members of the American Eugenics Society, this chapter describes the intellectual journey of the Catholics who eventually became the eugenics movement’s most fervent opponents. It reviews Catholic debate about eugenic sterilization, the reaction to Margaret Sanger’s fledgling birth control movement, and the lay and clerical reaction to Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubi.
Christine Rosen
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195156799
- eISBN:
- 9780199835218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515679X.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
By the mid-1930s, when the eugenics movement was under steady attack by geneticists, social scientists, Catholics, and conservative Protestants, it nevertheless continued to garner some religious ...
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By the mid-1930s, when the eugenics movement was under steady attack by geneticists, social scientists, Catholics, and conservative Protestants, it nevertheless continued to garner some religious support, including a large conference held in 1939 on “The Relation of Eugenics and the Church.” This chapter describes that support, as well the story of two late converts to the movement, Rev. George Reid Andrews and Rev. Kenneth MacArthur, and links their activities to the larger decline of eugenics as a viable social-scientific movement. It also outlines the attempts by Frederick Osborn to reform the American Eugenics Society.Less
By the mid-1930s, when the eugenics movement was under steady attack by geneticists, social scientists, Catholics, and conservative Protestants, it nevertheless continued to garner some religious support, including a large conference held in 1939 on “The Relation of Eugenics and the Church.” This chapter describes that support, as well the story of two late converts to the movement, Rev. George Reid Andrews and Rev. Kenneth MacArthur, and links their activities to the larger decline of eugenics as a viable social-scientific movement. It also outlines the attempts by Frederick Osborn to reform the American Eugenics Society.
Ina Zweiniger‐Bargielowska
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199280520
- eISBN:
- 9780191594878
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280520.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
The question of national physique was catapulted to the forefront of public debate amidst revelations of high rejection rates among military recruits during the Boer War, 1899‐1902. Military ...
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The question of national physique was catapulted to the forefront of public debate amidst revelations of high rejection rates among military recruits during the Boer War, 1899‐1902. Military recruitment statistics were represented as a barometer of racial fitness and attention focused on the male body which became a symbol of national strength. This chapter traces the debate about physical deterioration. The Inter‐departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration paved the way for the Edwardian welfare reforms. The deterioration debate further precipitated the launch of new pressure groups and voluntary associations including the Eugenics Education Society, the Empire Day Movement, the Boy Scouts, and the Health and Strength League. In response to the deterioration debate, physical culture and life reform promoters, public health officials, and leaders of voluntary organizations redefined the cultivation of a fit male body as a duty of citizenship and a patriotic response to the needs of the British Empire.Less
The question of national physique was catapulted to the forefront of public debate amidst revelations of high rejection rates among military recruits during the Boer War, 1899‐1902. Military recruitment statistics were represented as a barometer of racial fitness and attention focused on the male body which became a symbol of national strength. This chapter traces the debate about physical deterioration. The Inter‐departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration paved the way for the Edwardian welfare reforms. The deterioration debate further precipitated the launch of new pressure groups and voluntary associations including the Eugenics Education Society, the Empire Day Movement, the Boy Scouts, and the Health and Strength League. In response to the deterioration debate, physical culture and life reform promoters, public health officials, and leaders of voluntary organizations redefined the cultivation of a fit male body as a duty of citizenship and a patriotic response to the needs of the British Empire.
Susanne C. Knittel
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823262786
- eISBN:
- 9780823266500
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823262786.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The Historical Uncanny explores the ways in which cultural memories that pose uncomfortable challenges to the self-understanding of the remembering public are often systematically disregarded. The ...
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The Historical Uncanny explores the ways in which cultural memories that pose uncomfortable challenges to the self-understanding of the remembering public are often systematically disregarded. The “historical uncanny” is that which resists reification precisely because it is uncomfortable or unassimilable to the dominant discourses of commemoration. The book focuses on two marginalized aspects of the memory of the Holocaust: the Nazi “euthanasia” program directed against the mentally ill and disabled, and the Fascist persecution of Slovenes, Croats, and Jews in and around Trieste. The two memorials under consideration, Grafeneck, a former Nazi euthanasia killing center in Germany, and the Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp memorial in Trieste, bookend the Holocaust, revealing a trajectory from the eugenicist elimination of socially undesirable people, such as the mentally ill and disabled, to the full-scale racial purification of the Final Solution. The analysis of these memorials is coupled with an examination of the literary and artistic representations of the traumatic events in question. This approach leads to an expanded definition of “site of memory” as an assemblage of cultural artifacts and discourses that accumulate over time; a physical and a cultural space that is continuously redefined, rewritten, and re-presented. This comparative and interdisciplinary study brings together perspectives from literary studies, memory studies, disability studies, and postcolonial studies that contribute to a broader and more differentiated understanding of the Holocaust and its place in contemporary European memory culture.Less
The Historical Uncanny explores the ways in which cultural memories that pose uncomfortable challenges to the self-understanding of the remembering public are often systematically disregarded. The “historical uncanny” is that which resists reification precisely because it is uncomfortable or unassimilable to the dominant discourses of commemoration. The book focuses on two marginalized aspects of the memory of the Holocaust: the Nazi “euthanasia” program directed against the mentally ill and disabled, and the Fascist persecution of Slovenes, Croats, and Jews in and around Trieste. The two memorials under consideration, Grafeneck, a former Nazi euthanasia killing center in Germany, and the Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp memorial in Trieste, bookend the Holocaust, revealing a trajectory from the eugenicist elimination of socially undesirable people, such as the mentally ill and disabled, to the full-scale racial purification of the Final Solution. The analysis of these memorials is coupled with an examination of the literary and artistic representations of the traumatic events in question. This approach leads to an expanded definition of “site of memory” as an assemblage of cultural artifacts and discourses that accumulate over time; a physical and a cultural space that is continuously redefined, rewritten, and re-presented. This comparative and interdisciplinary study brings together perspectives from literary studies, memory studies, disability studies, and postcolonial studies that contribute to a broader and more differentiated understanding of the Holocaust and its place in contemporary European memory culture.
Tony Platt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097560
- eISBN:
- 9781526104441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097560.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
Focussing on the exhumation of Native American gravesites in the American West in the 20th century, the chapter presents a counter-narrative to many of the prevailing assumptions surrounding the ...
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Focussing on the exhumation of Native American gravesites in the American West in the 20th century, the chapter presents a counter-narrative to many of the prevailing assumptions surrounding the exhumation of the dead: that the descendants, biological and cultural, of the victims of mass crimes of genocide and violence want their ancestors to be traced, exhumed, identified, named, and publicly acknowledged. But to understand the history of this region’s bitter legacies requires a larger context and backstory, one in which archaeological-scientific abuse was one of three interrelated catastrophes that indigenous people experienced.Less
Focussing on the exhumation of Native American gravesites in the American West in the 20th century, the chapter presents a counter-narrative to many of the prevailing assumptions surrounding the exhumation of the dead: that the descendants, biological and cultural, of the victims of mass crimes of genocide and violence want their ancestors to be traced, exhumed, identified, named, and publicly acknowledged. But to understand the history of this region’s bitter legacies requires a larger context and backstory, one in which archaeological-scientific abuse was one of three interrelated catastrophes that indigenous people experienced.
Matthew Gibson and Neil Mann (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781942954255
- eISBN:
- 9781786944160
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781942954255.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Yeats, Philosophy, and the Occult is a collection of essays examining the thought of the Irish poet W. B. Yeats and particularly his philosophical reading and explorations of older systems of ...
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Yeats, Philosophy, and the Occult is a collection of essays examining the thought of the Irish poet W. B. Yeats and particularly his philosophical reading and explorations of older systems of thought, where philosophy, mysticism, and the supernatural blend. It opens with a broad survey of the current state of Yeats scholarship and examination of Yeats’s poetic practice through a manuscript that shows the original core of a poem that became a work of philosophical thought and occult lore, “The Phases of the Moon.” The following essay examines an area where spiritualism, eugenic theory, and criminology cross paths in the writings of Cesare Lombroso, and Yeats’s response to his work. The third paper considers Yeats’s debts to the East, especially Buddhist and Hindu thought, while the fourth looks at his ideas about the dream-state, the nature of reality, and contact with the dead. The fifth essay explores Yeats’s understanding of the concept of the Great Year from classical astronomy and philosophy, and its role in the system of his work A Vision, and the sixth paper studies that work’s theory of “contemporaneous periods” affecting each other across history in the light of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West. The seventh essay evaluates Yeats’s reading of Berkeley and his critics’ appreciation (or lack of it) of how he responds to Berkeley’s idealism. The book as a whole explores how Yeats’s mind and thought relate to his poetry, drama, and prose, and how his reading informs all of them.Less
Yeats, Philosophy, and the Occult is a collection of essays examining the thought of the Irish poet W. B. Yeats and particularly his philosophical reading and explorations of older systems of thought, where philosophy, mysticism, and the supernatural blend. It opens with a broad survey of the current state of Yeats scholarship and examination of Yeats’s poetic practice through a manuscript that shows the original core of a poem that became a work of philosophical thought and occult lore, “The Phases of the Moon.” The following essay examines an area where spiritualism, eugenic theory, and criminology cross paths in the writings of Cesare Lombroso, and Yeats’s response to his work. The third paper considers Yeats’s debts to the East, especially Buddhist and Hindu thought, while the fourth looks at his ideas about the dream-state, the nature of reality, and contact with the dead. The fifth essay explores Yeats’s understanding of the concept of the Great Year from classical astronomy and philosophy, and its role in the system of his work A Vision, and the sixth paper studies that work’s theory of “contemporaneous periods” affecting each other across history in the light of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West. The seventh essay evaluates Yeats’s reading of Berkeley and his critics’ appreciation (or lack of it) of how he responds to Berkeley’s idealism. The book as a whole explores how Yeats’s mind and thought relate to his poetry, drama, and prose, and how his reading informs all of them.
Gerald V. O'Brien
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719087097
- eISBN:
- 9781781705896
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087097.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Many people are shocked upon discovering that tens of thousands of innocent persons in the United States were involuntarily sterilized, forced into institutions, and otherwise maltreated within the ...
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Many people are shocked upon discovering that tens of thousands of innocent persons in the United States were involuntarily sterilized, forced into institutions, and otherwise maltreated within the course of the eugenic movement (1900-30). Such social control efforts are easier to understand when we consider the variety of dehumanizing and fear-inducing rhetoric propagandists invoke to frame their potential victims. This book details the major rhetorical themes employed within the context of eugenic propaganda, drawing largely on original sources of the period. Early in the twentieth century the term “moron” was developed to describe the primary targets of eugenic control. This book demonstrates how the image of moronity in the United States was shaped by eugenicists. This book will be of interest not only to disability and eugenic scholars and historians, but to anyone who wants to explore the means by which pejorative metaphors are utilized to support social control efforts against vulnerable community groups.Less
Many people are shocked upon discovering that tens of thousands of innocent persons in the United States were involuntarily sterilized, forced into institutions, and otherwise maltreated within the course of the eugenic movement (1900-30). Such social control efforts are easier to understand when we consider the variety of dehumanizing and fear-inducing rhetoric propagandists invoke to frame their potential victims. This book details the major rhetorical themes employed within the context of eugenic propaganda, drawing largely on original sources of the period. Early in the twentieth century the term “moron” was developed to describe the primary targets of eugenic control. This book demonstrates how the image of moronity in the United States was shaped by eugenicists. This book will be of interest not only to disability and eugenic scholars and historians, but to anyone who wants to explore the means by which pejorative metaphors are utilized to support social control efforts against vulnerable community groups.
Jill Rappoport
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199772605
- eISBN:
- 9780199919000
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199772605.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, Women's Literature
By the fin de siècle, women’s giving took on national significance through eugenic efforts to “save the race.” As women made economic, legal, and professional advances and became the visible ...
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By the fin de siècle, women’s giving took on national significance through eugenic efforts to “save the race.” As women made economic, legal, and professional advances and became the visible consumers of an emerging shopping industry, contemporary studies portrayed female gain as selfish and parasitic. Treatises by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Olive Schreiner and fiction by Gilman, Ménie Muriel Dowie, and Sarah Grand compensate for these profits by stressing sacrifice instead. These writers rework motherhood in eugenic terms to reframe women’s gain as renunciation and gift. Exploring the ideals and dangers of reciprocity, this chapter reveals how bourgeois women asserted themselves through traditions of giving that justified political activism and limited the national community it would createLess
By the fin de siècle, women’s giving took on national significance through eugenic efforts to “save the race.” As women made economic, legal, and professional advances and became the visible consumers of an emerging shopping industry, contemporary studies portrayed female gain as selfish and parasitic. Treatises by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Olive Schreiner and fiction by Gilman, Ménie Muriel Dowie, and Sarah Grand compensate for these profits by stressing sacrifice instead. These writers rework motherhood in eugenic terms to reframe women’s gain as renunciation and gift. Exploring the ideals and dangers of reciprocity, this chapter reveals how bourgeois women asserted themselves through traditions of giving that justified political activism and limited the national community it would create
Benjamin A. Cowan
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469627502
- eISBN:
- 9781469627526
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627502.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This book argues that Cold War struggles against “subversion” must be understood in cultural terms, as a reaction to the consequences—both real and perceived—of modernization. Inscribing Brazil’s ...
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This book argues that Cold War struggles against “subversion” must be understood in cultural terms, as a reaction to the consequences—both real and perceived—of modernization. Inscribing Brazil’s Cold War military rulers and their supporters into a decades-long trajectory of right-wing activism and ideology, and locating them in a transnational network of right-wing cultural warriors, the book demonstrates that anti-modern moral panic animated powerful, hard-line elements of Brazil’s countersubversive dictatorship (1964-1985). This moral panic conflated communist subversion with the accoutrement of modernity, and coalesced around the crucial nodes of gender and sexuality, particularly in relation to “modern” youth, women, and mass media. Transformations in these realms were anathema to the Right, who echoed the anxieties of generations past, pathologizing and sexualizing these phenomena, and identifying in them a “crisis of modernity” and of communist subversion. Hence the Cold War became more than a military struggle against rural guerrillas and urban terrorists; from the perspective of key activists and technocrats, the battle must be waged across sexual and bodily practice, clothing, music, art, mass media, and gender. Addressing historiographical neglect of the Right in Brazil and beyond, the book culturally historicizes the Western Cold War in a transnational sense by uncovering Atlantic networks of right-wing activism that validated anti-modern and anticommunist anxieties. These networks included Brazilian, European, and North Atlantic anticommunists, from the famous to those whose stars waned after the Cold War.Less
This book argues that Cold War struggles against “subversion” must be understood in cultural terms, as a reaction to the consequences—both real and perceived—of modernization. Inscribing Brazil’s Cold War military rulers and their supporters into a decades-long trajectory of right-wing activism and ideology, and locating them in a transnational network of right-wing cultural warriors, the book demonstrates that anti-modern moral panic animated powerful, hard-line elements of Brazil’s countersubversive dictatorship (1964-1985). This moral panic conflated communist subversion with the accoutrement of modernity, and coalesced around the crucial nodes of gender and sexuality, particularly in relation to “modern” youth, women, and mass media. Transformations in these realms were anathema to the Right, who echoed the anxieties of generations past, pathologizing and sexualizing these phenomena, and identifying in them a “crisis of modernity” and of communist subversion. Hence the Cold War became more than a military struggle against rural guerrillas and urban terrorists; from the perspective of key activists and technocrats, the battle must be waged across sexual and bodily practice, clothing, music, art, mass media, and gender. Addressing historiographical neglect of the Right in Brazil and beyond, the book culturally historicizes the Western Cold War in a transnational sense by uncovering Atlantic networks of right-wing activism that validated anti-modern and anticommunist anxieties. These networks included Brazilian, European, and North Atlantic anticommunists, from the famous to those whose stars waned after the Cold War.
Gerald V. O’Brien
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719087097
- eISBN:
- 9781781705896
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087097.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The introductory chapter lays out the rationale for and goals of the book. It provides an overview of important terminology, delineates the importance of eugenics, and provides a brief history of the ...
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The introductory chapter lays out the rationale for and goals of the book. It provides an overview of important terminology, delineates the importance of eugenics, and provides a brief history of the movement within the United States. Chapter concludes with a delineation of the content included within the various chapters of the textLess
The introductory chapter lays out the rationale for and goals of the book. It provides an overview of important terminology, delineates the importance of eugenics, and provides a brief history of the movement within the United States. Chapter concludes with a delineation of the content included within the various chapters of the text
Gerald V. O’Brien
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719087097
- eISBN:
- 9781781705896
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087097.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The concluding paragraph ties together the major themes of the book, and describes more fully the importance of the “moron” classification within the overall context of the eugenic alarm period in ...
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The concluding paragraph ties together the major themes of the book, and describes more fully the importance of the “moron” classification within the overall context of the eugenic alarm period in the United States, along with reasons that the themes explored in the book became important ways of framing those diagnosed as “morons”. This paragraph also discusses issues related to disability studies and eugenics, as well as contemporary relevance, especially in regard to those current practices that may be considered forms of eugenics.Less
The concluding paragraph ties together the major themes of the book, and describes more fully the importance of the “moron” classification within the overall context of the eugenic alarm period in the United States, along with reasons that the themes explored in the book became important ways of framing those diagnosed as “morons”. This paragraph also discusses issues related to disability studies and eugenics, as well as contemporary relevance, especially in regard to those current practices that may be considered forms of eugenics.
Thomas Docherty
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526132741
- eISBN:
- 9781526138965
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526132741.003.0007
- Subject:
- Education, Educational Policy and Politics
The prevailing cult and culture of managerial audit and measurement systemically translates qualities into quantities. Further, it requires that those measurements be inserted into a form of warfare ...
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The prevailing cult and culture of managerial audit and measurement systemically translates qualities into quantities. Further, it requires that those measurements be inserted into a form of warfare that we normalise as ‘league-table competitiveness’. The system as a whole then operates in a neo-Hobbesian state of war of all against all, which serves the interests of none and which damages the world’s intellectual and natural ecologies. Ecology is subsumed under economics. This chapter considers what must be done to construct a new model of the institution that will help not only to shape the good society but, even more fundamentally, will help to preserve and sustain the society itself in a time of ecological disaster. What should be the university’s proper relation to the state of nature? The chapter argues that the contemporary institution must reject all forms of political fundamentalism – including especially the dominant prevailing modes of market fundamentalism – if it is to work against any and all forms of political terror. The chapter situates the question of the survival of the university within the abiding question of the survival of the species and of our social existence.Less
The prevailing cult and culture of managerial audit and measurement systemically translates qualities into quantities. Further, it requires that those measurements be inserted into a form of warfare that we normalise as ‘league-table competitiveness’. The system as a whole then operates in a neo-Hobbesian state of war of all against all, which serves the interests of none and which damages the world’s intellectual and natural ecologies. Ecology is subsumed under economics. This chapter considers what must be done to construct a new model of the institution that will help not only to shape the good society but, even more fundamentally, will help to preserve and sustain the society itself in a time of ecological disaster. What should be the university’s proper relation to the state of nature? The chapter argues that the contemporary institution must reject all forms of political fundamentalism – including especially the dominant prevailing modes of market fundamentalism – if it is to work against any and all forms of political terror. The chapter situates the question of the survival of the university within the abiding question of the survival of the species and of our social existence.
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853239871
- eISBN:
- 9781846312694
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853239871.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
Class and race have been intertwined with eugenics. The former is associated with the class-ridden societies of Britain and, to a lesser extent, the United States, while the latter is generally ...
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Class and race have been intertwined with eugenics. The former is associated with the class-ridden societies of Britain and, to a lesser extent, the United States, while the latter is generally associated with the strict hereditarianism and its ‘perversion’ into blood and soil ideology in Germany's racially motivated genocide and Rassenhygiene. This chapter, which explores the role of race in British eugenics, shows that both class and race occupied a central place in the ideas and enquiries of British eugenicists, and argues that race-thinking was integral to their worldview. It also looks at how the same assumptions about race continued to inform research on race-mixing carried out by the Eugenics Society, whose members were more concerned with racial degeneration than with the threat to their middle-class way of life, after World War II. Finally, the chapter considers how eugenics is tied to the aristocratic and Tory revivalism of the Edwardian period.Less
Class and race have been intertwined with eugenics. The former is associated with the class-ridden societies of Britain and, to a lesser extent, the United States, while the latter is generally associated with the strict hereditarianism and its ‘perversion’ into blood and soil ideology in Germany's racially motivated genocide and Rassenhygiene. This chapter, which explores the role of race in British eugenics, shows that both class and race occupied a central place in the ideas and enquiries of British eugenicists, and argues that race-thinking was integral to their worldview. It also looks at how the same assumptions about race continued to inform research on race-mixing carried out by the Eugenics Society, whose members were more concerned with racial degeneration than with the threat to their middle-class way of life, after World War II. Finally, the chapter considers how eugenics is tied to the aristocratic and Tory revivalism of the Edwardian period.
James Tabery
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027373
- eISBN:
- 9780262324144
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027373.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
If everyone now agrees that human traits arise not from nature or nurture but from the interaction of nature and nurture, then why does the “nature versus nurture” debate persist? In Beyond Versus, ...
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If everyone now agrees that human traits arise not from nature or nurture but from the interaction of nature and nurture, then why does the “nature versus nurture” debate persist? In Beyond Versus, James Tabery argues that the persistence stems from a century-long struggle to understand the interaction of nature and nurture—a struggle to define what the interaction of nature and nurture is, how it should be investigated, and what counts as evidence for it. Tabery tells the story of the past, takes stock of the present, and considers the future of research on the interaction of nature and nurture. From the eugenics controversy of the 1930s regarding sterilization, to the IQ controversy of the 1970s in behaviour genetics regarding race, to the 21st century debate over the causes of depression, Tabery argues that the polarization in these discussions can be attributed to what he calls an “explanatory divide”—a disagreement over how explanation works in science, which in turn has created two very different concepts of interaction. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of science, Tabery then offers a way to integratively bridge this explanatory divide and integratively bridge these different concepts. Looking to the future, Tabery evaluates the bioethical issues that surround genetic testing (in the form of whole genome sequencing) for genes implicated in interactions of nature and nurture, pointing to what the future does (and does not) hold for a science that continues to make headlines and raise controversy.Less
If everyone now agrees that human traits arise not from nature or nurture but from the interaction of nature and nurture, then why does the “nature versus nurture” debate persist? In Beyond Versus, James Tabery argues that the persistence stems from a century-long struggle to understand the interaction of nature and nurture—a struggle to define what the interaction of nature and nurture is, how it should be investigated, and what counts as evidence for it. Tabery tells the story of the past, takes stock of the present, and considers the future of research on the interaction of nature and nurture. From the eugenics controversy of the 1930s regarding sterilization, to the IQ controversy of the 1970s in behaviour genetics regarding race, to the 21st century debate over the causes of depression, Tabery argues that the polarization in these discussions can be attributed to what he calls an “explanatory divide”—a disagreement over how explanation works in science, which in turn has created two very different concepts of interaction. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of science, Tabery then offers a way to integratively bridge this explanatory divide and integratively bridge these different concepts. Looking to the future, Tabery evaluates the bioethical issues that surround genetic testing (in the form of whole genome sequencing) for genes implicated in interactions of nature and nurture, pointing to what the future does (and does not) hold for a science that continues to make headlines and raise controversy.
Jade S. Sasser
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479873432
- eISBN:
- 9781479860142
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479873432.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Chapter 2 explores the history of how population came to be known as an environmental problem, emerging through debates about eugenics, war, geopolitical stability, and land use. I begin the chapter ...
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Chapter 2 explores the history of how population came to be known as an environmental problem, emerging through debates about eugenics, war, geopolitical stability, and land use. I begin the chapter by exploring how population was first identified as a central problem of state-making and security, and its role in the evolution of ecological sciences. Next, I trace the ways the environmental sciences and population politics have entwined and overlapped in subsequent decades. Throughout, I analyze the ways knowledge production linking population to environmental problems moved between political advocacy motivated by concerns about war and geopolitical security, concerns about planetary limits, and a site of scientific knowledge development and struggle.Less
Chapter 2 explores the history of how population came to be known as an environmental problem, emerging through debates about eugenics, war, geopolitical stability, and land use. I begin the chapter by exploring how population was first identified as a central problem of state-making and security, and its role in the evolution of ecological sciences. Next, I trace the ways the environmental sciences and population politics have entwined and overlapped in subsequent decades. Throughout, I analyze the ways knowledge production linking population to environmental problems moved between political advocacy motivated by concerns about war and geopolitical security, concerns about planetary limits, and a site of scientific knowledge development and struggle.
James Tabery
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027373
- eISBN:
- 9780262324144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027373.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Francis Galton first envisioned a science of “nature versus nurture”—a science devoted to understanding whether nature or nurture contributes more to human traits and a science devoted to using that ...
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Francis Galton first envisioned a science of “nature versus nurture”—a science devoted to understanding whether nature or nurture contributes more to human traits and a science devoted to using that understanding to intervene on those traits with eugenics. Soon after Galton’s introduction of nature versus nurture, scientists moved beyond versus and began considering how nature and nurture interact (now understood as gene-environment interaction). Beyond Versus explores famous episodes from the nature/nurture debate regarding eugenics, race and IQ, and the causes of depression; in so doing, it tells the story of the past, takes stock of the present, and considers the future of research on the interaction of nature and nurture—research that continues to make headlines and raise controversy.Less
Francis Galton first envisioned a science of “nature versus nurture”—a science devoted to understanding whether nature or nurture contributes more to human traits and a science devoted to using that understanding to intervene on those traits with eugenics. Soon after Galton’s introduction of nature versus nurture, scientists moved beyond versus and began considering how nature and nurture interact (now understood as gene-environment interaction). Beyond Versus explores famous episodes from the nature/nurture debate regarding eugenics, race and IQ, and the causes of depression; in so doing, it tells the story of the past, takes stock of the present, and considers the future of research on the interaction of nature and nurture—research that continues to make headlines and raise controversy.
James Tabery
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027373
- eISBN:
- 9780262324144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027373.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The origin of research on the interaction of nature and nurture is really a story of origins. For, in the 1920s and 1930s, two British biologists separately considered how nature and nurture might ...
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The origin of research on the interaction of nature and nurture is really a story of origins. For, in the 1920s and 1930s, two British biologists separately considered how nature and nurture might interact to bring about the development of human traits and differences in those traits. R. A. Fisher introduced what came to be the “biometric concept of interaction”, while Lancelot Hogben introduced what came to be the “developmental concept of interaction”. Most importantly, Fisher came to think of interaction as a nuisance and rare in nature, while Hogben thought of interaction as common in nature and vitally important to biological explanation. Fisher and Hogben, vehemently arguing during the height of the eugenics controversy, laid the framework for all future debates about the interaction of nature and nurture.Less
The origin of research on the interaction of nature and nurture is really a story of origins. For, in the 1920s and 1930s, two British biologists separately considered how nature and nurture might interact to bring about the development of human traits and differences in those traits. R. A. Fisher introduced what came to be the “biometric concept of interaction”, while Lancelot Hogben introduced what came to be the “developmental concept of interaction”. Most importantly, Fisher came to think of interaction as a nuisance and rare in nature, while Hogben thought of interaction as common in nature and vitally important to biological explanation. Fisher and Hogben, vehemently arguing during the height of the eugenics controversy, laid the framework for all future debates about the interaction of nature and nurture.
IsIah Lavender III
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781628461237
- eISBN:
- 9781626740686
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628461237.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Isiah Lavender, III, in “Digging Deep: Ailments of Difference in Octavia Butler’s ‘The Evening and the Morning and the Night,’” demonstrates how Butler’s critically neglected story is a race story, ...
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Isiah Lavender, III, in “Digging Deep: Ailments of Difference in Octavia Butler’s ‘The Evening and the Morning and the Night,’” demonstrates how Butler’s critically neglected story is a race story, with disease functioning as a race metaphor, and that those suffering from the fictional genetic illness Duryea-Gode Disease (DGD) are in fact victims of cultural racism, figurative blackness, and racial othering.Less
Isiah Lavender, III, in “Digging Deep: Ailments of Difference in Octavia Butler’s ‘The Evening and the Morning and the Night,’” demonstrates how Butler’s critically neglected story is a race story, with disease functioning as a race metaphor, and that those suffering from the fictional genetic illness Duryea-Gode Disease (DGD) are in fact victims of cultural racism, figurative blackness, and racial othering.
