#45 S:PAM Lecture 

Faces, Physiognomy and Caricature: on the use of stereo-‘types’ in fin-de-siècle Brussels

By Evelien Jonckheere

24-05-2023 18:30 - 20:00

@Vandenhove Paviljoen: Rozier 1, 9000 Gent

Registration required via de link: https://event.ugent.be/registration/StereoTypes 

Human zoo exhibitions and freak shows in Musée Castan, cross-dressing in ‘revues fin d’années’ at the Alcazar, and silhouettes of ‘types (in)connus’ in the artistic cabaret of the Diable-au-Corps: fin-de-siècle Brussels was obsessed with stereo-‘types’ as they re-classified people in a shifting social context. In this lecture, the construction, dissemination and transformation of stereo-‘types’ will be analyzed against the background of physiognomy, a (pseudo)scientific cultural practice that reads facial features as signifiers of character, health, class, gender, age, race, religion, nation etc. Whereas physiognomy is often reduced to Lavater’s famous ‘Physiognomische Fragment’ (1775-1778), the discipline reached new heights with Lombroso’s fin-de-siècle facial classifications that became popular in psychiatry and criminology, stimulated by photography. By unveiling a dense network of scientists, showmen, journalists and artists in popular performance in Brussels, this project aims to demonstrate how visual media and technologies affect our gaze by creating a physiognomic body policy resulting in recognizable ‘types’, next to counter-culture filled with laughter and caricatures.

Evelien Jonckheere is a senior postdoctoral fellow (FWO), at the University of Antwerp. She investigated magic lantern projections in spectacular context as postdoctoral researcher in the B-magic project (www.B-magic.eu). Her PhD, an investigation of the tensions between the Belgian café-concert, variety theatre and official theatre, was defended at Ghent University in 2014 and published as Aandacht! Aandacht! Aandacht en verstrooiing in het Gentse Grand Théâtre, Café-concert en Variététheater, 1880-1914 (Leuven University Press, 2017). She wrote Kijklust en Sensatiezucht. Een geschiedenis van revue en variété (Meulenhoff/Manteau, 2009) and several articles and book chapters on popular entertainment and artistic practices in Belgium and abroad.