Greetings readers!  We at the DLR have appreciated your commitment and interest in our journal and blog throughout the year.  As the academic year winds down and the team prepares for the journal’s next chapter, we thought we would bring all of you into the daily life of a DLR team member. In this blog […]

“The circus aesthetic is born in a queer world from queer artists and disrupts the normative at every turn. The lady with the beard is the ringleader and not in the sideshow… a bridge into this magical world.”  Jennifer Miller (Hou, “Queer Spectacle…”) I was initially introduced to Jennifer Miller through reading “Live From New […]

By Ellie Fawcett In October of 1996, an episode of The X-Files called “Home” aired for the first time. Despite this seemingly innocuous title, the episode caused a massive controversy and was banned from airing on Fox again for three years. Today, almost twenty years after the original airdate, “Home” continues to top lists of […]

By Sarah Keck In freak shows, people with physical differences–such as conjoined twins, those with fewer limbs than the norm, and those who can perform unusual actions–are displayed for the public to gawk and stare at. Because their differences from the “normal” concept of the human are emphasized, they are made to seem inhuman to […]

By: Kathryn Hampshire “There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his […]

By: Bryce Longenberger During the past century, fat people exhibits featured prominently in the American freak show. Although today the freak show has largely died out, the fat body continues to be on display in modern American pop culture. The issues surrounding the contemporary display of fatness can be seen when one examines CBS’s number-one-ranked […]