Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-235) and index.

Cultural locations of disability -- Masquerades of impairment : charity as a confidence game -- Subnormal nation : the making of a U.S. disability minority -- The eugenic Atlantic : disability and the making of an international science -- After the panopticon : contemporary institutions as documentary subject -- Body genres and disability sensations : the challenge of the new disability documentary cinema -- Compulsory feral-ization.

In Cultural Locations of Disability, Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell trace how disabled people came to be viewed as biologically deviant. The eugenics era pioneered techniques that managed "defectives" through the application of therapies, invasive case histories, and acute surveillance techniques, turning disabled persons into subjects for a readily available research pool. In its pursuit of normalization, eugenics implemented disability regulations that included charity systems, marriage laws, sterilization, institutionalization, and even extermination. Enacted in enclosed d.