Synopses & Reviews
“Typecasting is merely the most lucid and instructive history book to be published in the new millennium. ”
—Kurt Vonnegut, author of A Man Without a Country
“In Typecasting, two ace historians offer a profound and sweeping study of the most everyday, often unconscious, forms of prejudice. [It's] bound to make you think—and think again. ”
- Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bait and Switch
- Investigating the practice of science in the service of prejudice, Ewen & Ewen bring to life the dark history of the Age of Democracy, where every step toward equality has found a parallel retreat into hierarchical dogma:
- In 1776, as some American colonials proclaimed that all men are created equal, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, court physician to England’s King George III, subdivided humanity into five unequal categories.
- Early-twentieth-century socialist and birth control advocate Margaret Sanger saw one of birth control’s potential uses as being a tool for curbing the procreation of "socially degenerate" populations: those "unfit" for democracy.
- In 2005, Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard University suggested “issues of intrinsic aptitude” were to account for the underrepresentation of women in the sciences and mathematics.
In this monumental work of popular history, Ewen & Ewen vividly expose the pivotal developments that have made stereotypes a persistent, common language. Moving across centuries and continents in thirty eloquent vignettes, their extraordinary journey uncovers the incubation of modern stereotypes in the halls of science and aesthetics and traces their materialization in the popular imagination. Their detective work in museum archives, popular magazines, and film alike, uncovers how stereotype has served as the groundwork of power in the modern world.
Synopsis
"Stuart Ewen is one of the foremost interpreters today of our culture."-Bill Moyers
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"[Elizabeth Ewen's] Picture Windowsshatters assumptions about the suburbs."-The New York Times
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"[InCaptains of Consciousness] Stuart Ewen has given us the best book thus far on the origins of American mass culture."-Stanley Aronowitz
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Typecastingchronicles the emergence of the "science of first impression"and reveals how the work of its creators-early social scientists-continues to shape how we see the world and to inform our most fundamental and unconscious judgments of beauty, humanity, and degeneracy. In this groundbreaking exploration of the growth of stereotyping amidst the rise of modern society, authors Ewen and Ewen demonstrate "typecasting"as a persistent cultural practice. Drawing on fields as diverse as history, pop culture, racial science, and film, and including over one hundred images, many published here for the first time, the authors present a vivid portrait of stereotyping as it was forged by colonialism, industrialization, mass media, urban life, and the global economy.
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Ewen & Ewenis an authorial sobriquet assumed by Stuart Ewen and Elizabeth Ewen in no particular order. Elizabeth Ewenis distinguished teaching professor in the Department of American Studies at SUNY College at Old Westbury. Stuart Ewenis a CUNY distinguished professor of film and media studies at Hunter College and in the PhD programs in history and sociology at The CUNY Graduate Center.
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Synopsis
Typecasting chronicles the emergence of the "science of first impression" and reveals how the work of its creators—early social scientists—continues to shape how we see the world and to inform our most fundamental and unconscious judgments of beauty, humanity, and degeneracy. In this groundbreaking exploration of the growth of stereotyping amidst the rise of modern society, authors Ewen & Ewen demonstrate "typecasting" as a persistent cultural practice. Drawing on fields as diverse as history, pop culture, racial science, and film, and including over one hundred images, many published here for the first time, the authors present a vivid portrait of stereotyping as it was forged by colonialism, industrialization, mass media, urban life, and the global economy.
Synopsis
In-depth, fascinating, and lavishly illustrated, the definitive history on modern stereotypes from Victorian racial science to pop culture.
About the Author
EWEN & EWEN is an authorial sobriquet assumed by Stuart Ewen and Elizabeth Ewen in no particular order. Elizabeth Ewen is Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of American Studies at SUNY College at Old Westbury. Stuart Ewen is CUNY Distinguished Professor of Film & Media Studies at Hunter College and in the Ph.D. Programs in History and Sociology at The CUNY Graduate Center.