American Eugenics Race Queer Anatomy And The Science Of Nationalism 1st Edition Nancy Ordover by Nancy Ordover 9780816635597, 0816635595 instant download after payment.

The Nazis may have given eugenics its negative connotations, but the practice-and the “science” that supports it-is still disturbingly alive in America in anti-immigration initiatives, the quest for a "gay gene," & theories of collective intelligence. Tracing the historical roots & persistence of eugenics in the United States, Nancy Ordover explores the political & cultural climate that has endowed these campaigns with mass appeal & scientific legitimacy. 

American Eugenics demonstrates how biological theories of race, gender, & sexuality are crucially linked through a concern with regulating the “unfit.” These links emerge in Ordover's examination of three separate but ultimately related American eugenics campaigns: early twentieth-century anti-immigration crusades; medical models & interventions imposed on (& sometimes embraced by) lesbians, gays, transgendered people, & bisexuals; & the compulsory sterilization of poor women & women of color. 

Throughout, her work reveals how constructed notions of race, gender, sexuality, & nation are put to ideological uses & how “faith in science” can undermine progressive social movements, drawing liberals & conservatives alike into eugenics-based discourse & policies. Nancy Ordover is an independent scholar who lives in New York City.