“From Wonder to Error: A Genealogy of Freak Discourse in Modernity,” from Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body

Rosemarie Garland Thomson

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“From Wonder to Error: A Genealogy of Freak Discourse in Modernity,” from Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body

Rosemarie Garland Thomson
Rosemarie Garland Thomson

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This chapter is in the book Classic Readings on Monster Theory

ROSEMARIE GARLAND THOMSON, “FROM WONDER TO ERROR: A GENEALOGY OF FREAK DISCOURSE IN MODERNITY,” from FREAKERY: CULTURAL SPECTACLES OF THE EXTRAORDINARY BODYCritical IntroductionrOsemarie garland thOmsOn (1946– ) is Professor of English and CoDirector of the Emory Disability Studies Initiative at Emory University. She specializes in American literature and culture, which she approaches from the perspective of disability studies—a field she helped to found—as well as feminism, and, more recently, bioethics. Among Garland Thomson’s notable contributions to monster studies is her reframing of “disability”—often seen as a source of sorrow, a failure and lack—to a source of wonder. Instead of using terms like “deformed” or “disabled,” she writes about “exceptional,” “unexpected,” and, most pointedly, “extraordinary” bodies. In so doing, she creates a positive discourse to describe and discuss nonnormative bodies.Garland Thomson’s major publications include her authored books—Staring: How We Look (Oxford University Press, 2009), Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (Columbia University Press, 1997)—and a series of edited collections. Here, we present “From Wonder to Error: A Genealogy of Freak Discourse in Modernity,” which is the introduction to Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body (New York University Press, 1996). In this essay, Garland Thomson argues for her new vocabulary of the extraordinary while exploring the shifts in perceptions of nonnormative bodies over time. Through a consideration of the circus and sideshow practices of the Victorian period, she argues that “freaks” are not born. Instead, they are made by culture through a process she refers to as “enfreakment,” a term she borrows from David Hevey, a disability theorist, author, filmmaker, and photographer. Enfreakment is the series of “cultural rituals that stylize, silence, differentiate, and distance the persons whose bodies the freakhunters or showmen colonize and commercialize.” As she writes, “the monstrous body exists in societies to be exploited for someone else’s purposes.”Reading QuestionsWhat does it mean to argue that nobody is born a “freak,” but made into one through cultural processes? How might we apply this insight to other figures considered “monsters” or “monstrous”?Editorial NotesWe here present most of the introductory chapter to Garland Thompson book, leaving off the final section containing an outline of the rest of the book’s chapters. The original images used in her essay were not available, so we have substituted similar images of the same performers. We have also reduced the total number of illustrations.Further ReadingBogdan, Robert. Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1988.Garland Thomson, Rosemarie, ed. Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. New York: New York University Press, 1996.Garland Thomson, Rosemarie. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.ASM

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ROSEMARIE GARLAND THOMSON, “FROM WONDER TO ERROR: A GENEALOGY OF FREAK DISCOURSE IN MODERNITY,” from FREAKERY: CULTURAL SPECTACLES OF THE EXTRAORDINARY BODYCritical IntroductionrOsemarie garland thOmsOn (1946– ) is Professor of English and CoDirector of the Emory Disability Studies Initiative at Emory University. She specializes in American literature and culture, which she approaches from the perspective of disability studies—a field she helped to found—as well as feminism, and, more recently, bioethics. Among Garland Thomson’s notable contributions to monster studies is her reframing of “disability”—often seen as a source of sorrow, a failure and lack—to a source of wonder. Instead of using terms like “deformed” or “disabled,” she writes about “exceptional,” “unexpected,” and, most pointedly, “extraordinary” bodies. In so doing, she creates a positive discourse to describe and discuss nonnormative bodies.Garland Thomson’s major publications include her authored books—Staring: How We Look (Oxford University Press, 2009), Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (Columbia University Press, 1997)—and a series of edited collections. Here, we present “From Wonder to Error: A Genealogy of Freak Discourse in Modernity,” which is the introduction to Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body (New York University Press, 1996). In this essay, Garland Thomson argues for her new vocabulary of the extraordinary while exploring the shifts in perceptions of nonnormative bodies over time. Through a consideration of the circus and sideshow practices of the Victorian period, she argues that “freaks” are not born. Instead, they are made by culture through a process she refers to as “enfreakment,” a term she borrows from David Hevey, a disability theorist, author, filmmaker, and photographer. Enfreakment is the series of “cultural rituals that stylize, silence, differentiate, and distance the persons whose bodies the freakhunters or showmen colonize and commercialize.” As she writes, “the monstrous body exists in societies to be exploited for someone else’s purposes.”Reading QuestionsWhat does it mean to argue that nobody is born a “freak,” but made into one through cultural processes? How might we apply this insight to other figures considered “monsters” or “monstrous”?Editorial NotesWe here present most of the introductory chapter to Garland Thompson book, leaving off the final section containing an outline of the rest of the book’s chapters. The original images used in her essay were not available, so we have substituted similar images of the same performers. We have also reduced the total number of illustrations.Further ReadingBogdan, Robert. Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1988.Garland Thomson, Rosemarie, ed. Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. New York: New York University Press, 1996.Garland Thomson, Rosemarie. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.ASM

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