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Cited by 44German Literature and Culture StudiesPhilosophy and Historical ThoughtMedical History and Research

The DOI matches its Crossref record.

About Face: German Physiognomic Thought from Lavater to Auschwitz

Krobb, Florian, Gray, Richard T.·2006·The Modern Language Review
DOI 10.2307/20466881
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Abstract

Once associated with astrology and occultist prophecy, the art of interpreting personal character based on facial and other physical features dates back to antiquity. About Face tells the intriguing story of how physiognomics became particularly popular during the Enlightenment, no longer as a mere parlor game but as an empirically grounded discipline. The story expands to illuminate an entire tradition within German culture, stretching from Goethe to the rise of Nazism. In About Face, Richard T. Gray explores the dialectical reversal - from the occult to the scientific realm - that entered physiognomic thought in the late eighteenth century, beginning with the positivistic writings of Swiss pastor Johann Caspar Lavater. Originally claimed to promote understanding and love, physiognomics devolved into a system aimed at valorizing a specific set of physical, moral, and emotional traits and stamping everything else as deviant. This development not only reinforced racial, national, and characterological prejudices but also lent such beliefs a presumably scientific grounding. In the period following World War I, physiognomics experienced yet another unprecedented boom in popularity. Gray explains how physiognomics had by then become a highly respected super-discipline that embraced many prominent strands of German thought: the Romantic of nature, the life philosophy propagated by Dilthey and Nietzsche, the cultural pessimism of Schopenhauer, Husserl's method of intuitive observation, Freudian psychoanalysis, and early-twentieth-century eugenics and racial biology. A rich exploration of German culture, About Face offers fresh insight into the intellectual climate that allowed the dangerous thinking of National Socialism to take hold.

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Metadata

Authors
Krobb, F., & Gray, R. T.
ORCID
Krobb, Florian
Venue
The Modern Language Review
Publisher
JSTOR
Published
2006-04-01
Volume
101
Issue
2
Pages
601
ISSN
0026-7937 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.2307/20466881
OpenAlex
W2001721509
Cited by
40
References
0
Citations by year
2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 2
FWCI
95.33
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
The Modern Language Review (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › German Literature and Culture Studies
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophy and Historical Thought
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Medical History and Research
Keywords
physiognomy, Johann Caspar Lavater, German Enlightenment, National Socialism, eugenics, racial biology, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl, Freudian psychoanalysis, Romanticism, characterology, deviance, occultism, intellectual history

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