SOCIOL 3GG3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Spina Bifida, Conjoined Twins, Parasitic Twin
7 May 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Reflects a cultural state of mind and a set of cultural practices. Is dependent on norms of values and time and place. The freak is no an ind w certain physical states/traits. Is a stylized presentation of deceit and addectation. Is a particular way of thinking about and representing people. But were also feared and a source of social anxiety. Result of congress w the devil or a punishment from god. Result of human and animal couplings: monstrous hybrids centaur, satyr, minotaur. Stone age cave drawings depicting humans of unusual shapes. Prehistoric gravesites suggest bodies used for ritual sacrifice. In antiquity, visibly deformed infants killed by parents: were left outside town gates to die. Features in their interpretations of the natural order of things. Ugly laws instituted to manage beggars and the transient. Also applied to some categories of the physically different. Rise in authority and dominance of medical explanations.
