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oapen-20.500.12657-894582024-05-30T11:27:40Z Fantasies of Identification Samuels, Ellen Social and cultural anthropology Gender studies, gender groups thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBS Social groups, communities and identities::JBSF Gender studies, gender groups Explores the roots of modern understandings of bodily identity In the mid-nineteenth-century United States, as it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between bodies understood as black, white, or Indian; able-bodied or disabled; and male or female, intense efforts emerged to define these identities as biologically distinct and scientifically verifiable in a literally marked body. Combining literary analysis, legal history, and visual culture, Ellen Samuels traces the evolution of the “fantasy of identification”—the powerful belief that embodied social identities are fixed, verifiable, and visible through modern science. From birthmarks and fingerprints to blood quantum and DNA, she examines how this fantasy has circulated between cultural representations, law, science, and policy to become one of the most powerfully institutionalized ideologies of modern society. Yet, as Samuels demonstrates, in every case, the fantasy distorts its claimed scientific basis, substituting subjective language for claimed objective fact. From its early emergence in discourses about disability fakery and fugitive slaves in the nineteenth century to its most recent manifestation in the question of sex testing at the 2012 Olympic Games, Fantasies of Identification explores the roots of modern understandings of bodily identity. 2024-04-03T10:12:03Z 2024-04-03T10:12:03Z 2014 book ONIX_20240403_9781479855049_176 9781479855049 9781479812981 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/89458 eng Cultural Front application/pdf application/epub+zip Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International 9781479855049_WEB.pdf 9781479855049_EPUB.epub New York University Press NYU Press 10.18574/nyu/9781479855049.001.0001 10.18574/nyu/9781479855049.001.0001 7d95336a-0494-42b2-ad9c-8456b2e29ddc 9781479855049 9781479812981 NYU Press New York open access
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Explores the roots of modern understandings of bodily identity In the mid-nineteenth-century United States, as it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between bodies understood as black, white, or Indian; able-bodied or disabled; and male or female, intense efforts emerged to define these identities as biologically distinct and scientifically verifiable in a literally marked body. Combining literary analysis, legal history, and visual culture, Ellen Samuels traces the evolution of the “fantasy of identification”—the powerful belief that embodied social identities are fixed, verifiable, and visible through modern science. From birthmarks and fingerprints to blood quantum and DNA, she examines how this fantasy has circulated between cultural representations, law, science, and policy to become one of the most powerfully institutionalized ideologies of modern society. Yet, as Samuels demonstrates, in every case, the fantasy distorts its claimed scientific basis, substituting subjective language for claimed objective fact. From its early emergence in discourses about disability fakery and fugitive slaves in the nineteenth century to its most recent manifestation in the question of sex testing at the 2012 Olympic Games, Fantasies of Identification explores the roots of modern understandings of bodily identity.
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