Introduction. Whole Nations in Arms -- The Gospel of Rehabilitation -- A Great Army of Industrial Soldiers -- A Duty Incumbent on All Allied People -- He Marches Off On an Entente Leg -- A Charge Almost if Not Quite as Sacred -- Conclusion. The Right to Rehabilitation.
Summary In 1894, Augustin Cabanès founded La Chronique médicale, a one-of-a-kind medical journal that allowed the doctor to indulge his interest in the practise of médecin historique. Historical medicine used modern forensic knowledge to 'solve' the mysterious deaths of history. Such retrospective diagnoses were communicated to readers in a familiar literary style, that of crime writing. Developed at the intersection of medical professionalisation and specialisation, the rise of forensic medicine, and the popularisation of crime writing, Cabanès's work promoted a clear viewpoint on the role of the medical man in fin-de-siècle French society. Through the practise of historical medicine and the medium of crime writing, Cabanès aimed to bolster faith in forensic medicine, to promote the doctor as moral authority, and, relatedly, to establish scientific, and especially medical, practise as critical to the maintenance of the social order during volatile periods of social dislocation and war.
This article examines the role of facially wounded soldiers and prosthetic masks in the post‐First World War reconstruction of a gendered French nation. In contextualising the work of Anna Coleman Ladd, who sculpted facial prosthetics to 're‐humanise' disfigured French veterans, I aim to shed light on larger post‐war tensions between the accommodation and rejection of social and cultural change. By submitting to Ladd's efforts and donning her devices, the French mutilés who sought her help articulated, through their bodies, a conservative vision for the French nation – highlighting the resonance of the traditional masculine ideal in post‐war France and a desire to reconstruct an idealised past. The exposure of the 'surreal' face, conversely, signalled the futility of a return to the status quo ante and the creation of the Union des Blessés de la face et de la tête allowed veterans to renegotiate the bounds of acceptable masculinity. Collectively, the facially wounded suggest the ways in which the face serves as a site of gender work, a means by which to challenge or reify masculine norms of behaviour and appearance.
Historicizing Fear is a historical interrogation of the use of fear as a tool to vilify and persecute groups and individuals from a global perspective, offering an unflinching look at racism, fearful framing, oppression, and marginalization across human history.The book examines fear and Othering from a historical context, providing a better understanding of how power and oppression is used in the present day. Contributors ground their work in the theory of Othering—the reductive action of labeling a person as someone who belongs to a subordinate social category defined as the Other—in relation to historical events, demonstrating that fear of the Other is universal, timeless, and interconnected. Chapters address the music of neo-Nazi white power groups, fear perpetuated through the social construct of black masculinity in a racially hegemonic society, the terror and racial cleansing in early twentieth-century Arkansas, the fear of drug-addicted Vietnam War veterans, the creation of fear by the Tang Dynasty, and more. Timely, provocative, and rigorously researched, Historicizing Fear shows how the Othering of members of different ethnic groups has been used to propagate fear and social tension, justify state violence, and prevent groups or individuals from gaining equality. Broadening the context of how fear of the Other can be used as a propaganda tool, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of history, anthropology, political science, popular culture, critical race issues, social justice, and ethnic studies, as well as the general reader concerned with the fearful framing prevalent in politics. Contributors: Quaylan Allen, Melanie Armstrong, Brecht De Smet, Kirsten Dyck, Adam C. Fong, Jeff Johnson, Łukasz Kamieński, Guy Lancaster, Henry Santos Metcalf, Julie M. Powell, Jelle Versieren