Infrahumanisms

Megan H. Glick is Assistant Professor of American Studies at Wesleyan University.

• Acknowledgments  ixIntroduction: Toward a Theory of Infrahumanity  1Part I. Bioexpansionism, 1900s-1930s1. Brief Histories of Time: Nature, Culture, and the Making of Modern Childhood  292. Ocular Anthropomorphisms:Eugenics and Primatology at the Threshold of the "Almost Human"  56Part II. Extraterrestriality, 1940s-1970s3. On Alien Ground: Extraterrestrial Sightings, Atomic Warfare, and the Undoing of the Human Body  854. Inner and Outer Spaces: Exobiology, Human Genetics, and the Disembodiment of Corporeal Difference  110Part III. Interiority, 1980s-2010s5. Of Sodomy and Cannibalism: Disgust, Dehumanization, and the Rhetorics of Same-Sex and Cross-Species Contagion  1396. Everything except the Squeal: Porcine Hybridity in the Obesity Epidemic and Xenotransplantation Research  159Conclusion. The Plurality Is Near: Techniques of Symbiotic Re-speciation  196Notes  209Bibliography  247Index  263

“Infrahumanisms is an ambitious book that shows the applicability of the term ‘infrahuman’ to a wide range of historical contexts and highlights how these relate to constructions of sexual, racial, gender, and bodily difference…. Offering analyses of an impressive range of twentieth-century scientific and cultural phenomena, from the emergence of primatology to extraterrestrial sightings in the postwar era and contemporary xenotransplantation, Infrahumanisms will be of interest to scholars working in the history of sexuality, critical race studies, animal studies, medical humanities, and science studies.” - Ina Linge (Journal of the History of Sexuality) “It is a rare work that can bring together topics as disparate as childhood, nonhuman primates, aliens, xenotransplantation, and AIDS…. Full of surprising connections and intriguing insights, Infrahumanisms is a rich and stimulating contribution to the literature on eugenics, biomedicalization, and biopolitics in general.” - Rose Trappes (Metascience) “The scholarly discussions in both human-animal studies and posthuman theory have been insufficiently attentive to race and colonial histories, and Glick’s work is a welcome addition to these conversations, showing gaps in previous ways of thinking about the ideological functions of the animal/human boundary.” - Sherryl Vint (Catalyst) “Infrahumanisms shows how beliefs about species categories, species relations, and species hierarchies form the ground from which ideas about biological essentialism, humane behavior, and dehumanization often grow…. Glick’s methods and style in Infrahumanisms are bold and refreshing…. Readers will find this book to be generous, opening up lines of inquiry that may be taken up elsewhere.” - Rebecah Pulsifer (Women's Studies Quarterly) “Glick presents a new focus on the history of dehumanization and devaluation, of cultural and political exclusion based on differential conditions of embodiment including race, gender, sexuality, disability, and disease status…. A dense yet rewarding read. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.” - J. A. Kegley (Choice)