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1

THE SEPARATE WORLD OF ODDITIES

100%
Wieczorkiewicz A.
Kultura i Społeczeństwo
|
2006
|
vol. 50
|
issue 4
3-29
EN
The article presents freak shows as a specific kind of social and cultural phenomenon which constitutes the effect of a cultural compilation of the significance of human diversity. Here the human oddity is understood to be a certain cultural category and also a specific role to be played on the stage of social life. The typical freak shows which took place at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century are reconstructed. The issue of the creation of the identity of human oddities is then considered. The fundamental question is 'what social and cultural points were being made during such shows?'. The final part concentrates on the question of whether equivalents of them can be found today. In connection with this popular science films of a medical nature are analysed. Whatever pseudo-medical, politically correct narratives are woven round the motives for seeking the reasons for the deviations or their treatment and although the work towards the public acceptance of people with bodies which differ from the norm, they reveal clear signs of an ambivalent and abnormal fascination with the human body.
2

PROJECTS OF THE TOURIST WORLD

100%
Wieczorkiewicz A.
Kultura i Społeczeństwo
|
2005
|
vol. 49
|
issue 1
95-121
EN
The article analyzes the world represented in tourist advertisements and the experiences projected by them with reference to the essential tendencies of socio-cultural life. The concept of the world represented in tourist advertisements is described in the first part of the article. The second part focuses on some problematic areas in the tourist world. The rhetoric elaboration of visiting 'Ground 0' after the terrorist attack in September 11th supplies the material for the analysis. The conclusions point to the strategies of adjusting the projects of tourist experiences with various social contexts, which not always are compatible with them. In the third part, the strategies of constructing the tourist image of the world are related to the general life projects, especially to the projects of creating individual identity. The material for the analysis are the advertisements from 'The New York Times', and from the travel supplement to 'The New York Times' from September 11th 2001 to October 30th 2001. Direct observations were made from January to October 2002 in New York
3

'Coupled for Life and Death'. Siamese Twins and Figures of Cultural, Social, and Political Rhetoric

100%
Wieczorkiewicz A.
Teksty Drugie (Second Texts)
|
2008
|
issue 1-2
270-287
EN
The biography of Daisy and Violet Hilton, the Siamese sisters who appeared on stages internationally in the former half of 20th century, enables one to get an insight into the processes of cultural redefinition of unusual cases (once described as monstrous). The twins played their life out within a system of mutually coupled mechanisms of pathologisation of distinctness, stigmatisation and marginalisation of individuals diverging from the standard. They incessantly worked on negotiating their identity - they tried to be stage artists rather than a human rarity or an example of pathology. Tracing the sisters' vicissitudes, we can see how the bodily condition is entangled in a network of cultural narrations and practices, not mutually agreeing with one another but being enormously powerful in shaping the human lot.
4

The Baboon-Woman, the Bear-Woman. The History of Viewing Julia Pastrana

100%
Wieczorkiewicz A.
|
2006
|
vol. 60
|
issue 1(272)
40-47
EN
The point of departure is the life of Julia Pastrana, an unusually hirsute Mexican woman who during the second half of the nineteenth century was exhibited as a freak, the missing link, or the Ape Woman, and who also attracted the attention of men of science. Her biography provides us with insight into the nature of viewing people endowed with bodies contrasting with the norms recognized by society. Their public display is interpreted as a phenomenon associated with the social approach to a basically ambiguous fascination with situations in which 'obvious' cultural divisions into human and animal, female and male, primeval and civilized, or living and dead, have been crossed. The latter motif is brought to the forefront by an analysis of the fate of the mummified mortal remains of Julia Pastrana, on show up to the 1970s. The article also reflects on the tension emergent between the domains of entertainment and science, treated as mutually inspiring.
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