Staged Otherness in American Academia. A Reading

Abstract

Abstract In the American academic tradition, the freak show as a research topic appeared in the late 1970s, focusing on othered bodies and popular culture, considered revolutionary at the time. This article looks at the history of the discourses staged otherness provoked in the American context. While it was launched together with other discussions of othering – such as ‘the ethnic other’, which eventually led to the field of postcolonial studies – otherness based on physical difference led to discussions that established a perception of the freak show as an American phenomenon. Scholars like Leslie Fiedler used the othered body to cope with personal crisis, while Edward Said criticized Western European and American forms of colonial thinking. However, physical otherness seduced academics to argue along the dichotomies of self and other to eventually position the self. This article looks at this development historically, involving psychoanalysis, postcolonial studies, literary criticism, and popular culture, to question the American element of the freak show and encourage a rewriting of its cultural significance.