Abstract
This thesis examines how both late Victorian Anglo-Jews and Gentiles used rhetoric of race science and Jewish pathology to encode lines of difference, as well as the relationship between these discourses. My first chapter analyzes the role of Gentile discourse of disease and disability as the foundation of late Victorian anti-Semitism. My second chapter focuses on Jewish ‘expert’ engagement with race science. In this chapter, I argue that contrary to the dominant historical narrative, not only was the Jewish community engaged with race science, but their scholarly conversations were dynamic and diverse. Ideas about race and pathology became central to how individuals in the Jewish community distinguished among themselves in an increasingly heterogeneous body. My last chapter analyzes the way popular mediums allowed for a transformation of expert Jewish discourses on race, injecting the voices of women in the broader debate on the Jewish race within community.
Advisor
Welsch, Christina
Department
History
Recommended Citation
Pokras, Stephanie G., "Whose Line is it Anyway? Rhetoric, Pathology, and the Jewish Race in Late Victorian England" (2021). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 9313.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/9313
Disciplines
Cultural History | History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Jewish Studies | Other History
Keywords
Jewish history, British History, 19th Century, anti-Semitism, medicine, eugenics, disability, race-science
Publication Date
2021
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis Exemplar
Included in
Cultural History Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Other History Commons
© Copyright 2021 Stephanie G. Pokras