1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910454626403321

Autore

Seitler Dana

Titolo

Atavistic tendencies [[electronic resource] ] : the culture of science in American modernity / / Dana Seitler

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Minneapolis, : University of Minnesota Press, c2008

ISBN

0-8166-6642-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (326 p.)

Disciplina

810.9/36

Soggetti

Literature and science - United States - History - 19th century

Literature and science - United States - History - 20th century

American literature - 19th century - History and criticism

American literature - 20th century - History and criticism

Atavism - History - 19th century

Atavism - History - 20th century

Biology - United States - History - 19th century

Biology - United States - History - 20th century

Eugenics in literature

Human reproduction in literature

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-283) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Down on All Fours; 1 Freud's Menagerie: Our Atavistic Sense of Self; 2 Late Modern Morphologies: Scientific Empiricism and Photographic Representation; 3 "Wolf-wolf!": Narrating the Science of Desire; 4 Atavistic Time: Tarzan, Dr. Fu Manchu, and the Serial Dime Novel; 5 Unnatural Selection: Mothers, Eugenic Feminism, and Regeneration Narratives; 6 An Atavistic Embrace: Ape, Gorilla, Wolf, Man; Coda: Being-Now, Being-Then; Notes; Index

Sommario/riassunto

The post-Darwinian theory of atavism forecasted obstacles to human progress in the reappearance of throwback physical or cultural traits after several generations of absence. In this original and stimulating work, Dana Seitler explores the ways in which modernity itself is an



atavism, shaping a historical and theoretical account of its dramatic rise and impact on Western culture and imagination. Examining late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century science, fiction, and photography, Seitler discovers how modern thought oriented itself around this paradigm of obsolescence and return-one that s