Freak Shows and the Modern American Imagination: Constructing the Damaged Body from Willa Cather to Truman Capote (American Literature Readings in the 21st Century)

Freak Shows and the Modern American Imagination examines the artistic use of freak shows between 1900 and 1950. During this period, the freak show shifted from a highly popular and profitable form of entertainment to a reviled one. But why? And how does this response reflect larger social changes in the United States at the time? Artists responded to this change by using the freakish body as a tool for exploring problematic social attitudes about race, disability, and sexual desire in American culture. The freak body in art not only reveals disturbing truths about early twentieth-century prejudices, but it also becomes a space for exploring the profound social impact of contemporary events such as the Great Migration, World War I, and the Great Depression.