Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality

by Stuart Ewen, Elizabeth Ewen

Overview

Typecasting chronicles the emergence of the "science of first impression" and reveals how the work of its creators—early social scientists—continues to shape how we see the world and to inform our most fundamental and unconscious judgments of beauty, humanity, and degeneracy. In this groundbreaking exploration of the growth of stereotyping amidst the rise of modern society, authors Ewen & Ewen demonstrate "typecasting" as a persistent cultural practice. Drawing on fields as diverse as history, pop culture, racial science, and film, and including over one hundred images, many published here for the first time, the authors present a vivid portrait of stereotyping as it was forged by colonialism, industrialization, mass media, urban life, and the global economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781583227763
Publisher:	Seven Stories Press
Publication date:	04/01/2008
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

EWEN & EWEN is an authorial sobriquet assumed by Stuart Ewen and Elizabeth Ewen in no particular order. Elizabeth Ewen is Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of American Studies at SUNY College at Old Westbury. Stuart Ewen is CUNY Distinguished Professor of Film & Media Studies at Hunter College and in the Ph.D. Programs in History and Sociology at The CUNY Graduate Center.

Editorial Reviews

Typecasting is merely the most lucid and instructive history book to be published in the new millennium.” –Kurt Vonnegut


“In Typecasting, two ace historians offer a profound and sweeping study of the most everyday, often unconscious, forms of prejudice. [It's] bound to make you think—and think again.” –Barbara Ehrenreich


“With exceptional and profound research on visual cultures, Ewen & Ewen have captured a wide-angle view of the impact of racial imaging. Using the history of art as well as popular imagery, they demonstrate the complexity found in mapping and reading this legacy.” –Deborah Willis, author of Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographs: 1840 to the Present

From the Publisher