Big & small : a cultural history of extraordinary bodies / Lynne Vallone.
2017
NX650.B634 V35 2017 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection
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Details
Title
Big & small : a cultural history of extraordinary bodies / Lynne Vallone.
Author
ISBN
9780300228861 (hardcover)
0300228864 (hardcover)
0300228864 (hardcover)
Published
New Haven : Yale University Press, [2017]
Language
English
Description
xv, 339 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm
Call Number
NX650.B634 V35 2017
Dewey Decimal Classification
700/.4561
Summary
A groundbreaking work that explores human size as a distinctive cultural marker in Western thought. Author, scholar, and editor Lynne Vallone has an international reputation in the field of child studies. In this analytical tour-de-force, she explores bodily size difference-particularly unusual bodies, big and small-as an overlooked yet crucial marker that informs human identity and culture. Exploring miniaturism, giganticism, obesity, and the lived experiences of actual big and small people, Vallone boldly addresses the uncomfortable implications of using physical measures to judge normalcy, goodness, gender identity, and beauty. This wide-ranging work surveys the lives and contexts of both real and imagined persons with extraordinary bodies from the seventeenth century to the present day through close examinations of art, literature, folklore, and cultural practices, as well as scientific and pseudo-scientific discourses. Generously illustrated and written in a lively and accessible style, Vallone's provocative study encourages readers to look with care at extraordinary bodies and the cultures that created, depicted, loved, and dominated them.
Note
A groundbreaking work that explores human size as a distinctive cultural marker in Western thought. Author, scholar, and editor Lynne Vallone has an international reputation in the field of child studies. In this analytical tour-de-force, she explores bodily size difference-particularly unusual bodies, big and small-as an overlooked yet crucial marker that informs human identity and culture. Exploring miniaturism, giganticism, obesity, and the lived experiences of actual big and small people, Vallone boldly addresses the uncomfortable implications of using physical measures to judge normalcy, goodness, gender identity, and beauty. This wide-ranging work surveys the lives and contexts of both real and imagined persons with extraordinary bodies from the seventeenth century to the present day through close examinations of art, literature, folklore, and cultural practices, as well as scientific and pseudo-scientific discourses. Generously illustrated and written in a lively and accessible style, Vallone's provocative study encourages readers to look with care at extraordinary bodies and the cultures that created, depicted, loved, and dominated them.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 266-329) and index.
Record Appears in
Table of Contents
Introduction : People big and people small
Part I. Small bodies. Introduction : The little man ; 1. In the beginning was Tom Thumb ; 2. The dwarf in high and popular culture ; 3. Staging the dwarf ; 4. Lilliputians in blackface
Part II. Big bodies. Introduction : The monstrous giant ; 5. Gigantic mechanical Boy Scouts ; 6. The obese girl
Afterword : The human measure.
Part I. Small bodies. Introduction : The little man ; 1. In the beginning was Tom Thumb ; 2. The dwarf in high and popular culture ; 3. Staging the dwarf ; 4. Lilliputians in blackface
Part II. Big bodies. Introduction : The monstrous giant ; 5. Gigantic mechanical Boy Scouts ; 6. The obese girl
Afterword : The human measure.