A Cultural History
Distributed for Reaktion Books
Henderson explores the ways we have perceived ugliness throughout history, from ancient Roman feasts to medieval grotesque gargoyles, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to the Nazi Exhibition of Degenerate Art. Covering literature, art, music, and even the cutest possible incarnation of the term—Uglydolls—she reveals how ugliness has long posed a challenge to aesthetics and taste. She moves beyond the traditional philosophic argument that simply places ugliness in opposition to beauty in order to dismantle just what we mean when we say “ugly.” Following ugly things wherever they have trod, she traverses continents and centuries to delineate the changing map of ugliness and the profound effects it has had on the public imagination, littering her path with one fascinating tidbit after another.
Lovingly illustrated with the foulest images from art, history, and culture, Ugliness offers an oddly refreshing perspective, going past the surface to ask what “ugly” truly is, even as its meaning continues to shift.
Ugly Ones: Uncomfortable Anomalies
Polyphemus: ‘A Monster of a Main’
Dame Ragnell: ‘She Was a Loathly One!”
A Grotesque Old Woman: ‘The Ugly Duchess’
William Hay: ‘Never Was, Nor Will Be, a Member of the Ugly Club’
Julia Pastrana: ‘The Ugliest Woman in the World’
Orlan: ‘A Beautiful Woman who is Deliberately Becoming Ugly.”
Ugly Ones: Uncomfortably Grouped
Ugly Groups: Resisting Classification
Monsters and Monstrosities: Bordering Uglies
Outcasts and Outward Signs: Signifying Uglies
Primitives and Venuses: Colonizing Uglies
Broken Faces and Degenerate Bodies: Militarizing Uglies
Ugly Laws and Ugly Dolls: Legislating Uglies
Uglies United? Commercializing Ugly Groups
Ugly Senses: Transgressing Perceived Borders
Ugly Sight: Seeing Is Believing?
Ugly Sound: Do You Hear What I Hear?
Ugly Smell: A Nose for Trouble?
Ugly Taste: Are You What You Eat?
Ugly Touch: Do You Touch?
Sixth Sense: Feeling is Believing?
Epilogue: Ugly Us: A Cultural Quest?
Acknowledgements and Photo Acknowledgements