HEALTH FILMS IN THE SERVICE OF EUGENIC SURVEILLANCE OVER WOMEN IN INTERWAR EASTERN EUROPE
HEALTH FILMS IN THE SERVICE OF EUGENIC SURVEILLANCE OVER WOMEN IN INTERWAR EASTERN EUROPE
Author(s): Victoria Shmidt, Karl KaserSubject(s): History, Social Sciences, Sociology, Social history, Recent History (1900 till today), Health and medicine and law, Interwar Period (1920 - 1939)
Published by: Naučno društvo za istoriju zdravstvene kulture
Keywords: eugenics; Czechoslovakia; Yugoslavia; Eastern Europe; health films; population politics; patriarchal power
Summary/Abstract: This article explores the historical reconstruction of women and their specific status in nationalist movements, as “stepdaughters of the nation” in the health films produced in interwar Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. We trace the transformation of disciplining practices such as the female Bildungsroman disseminated in the late nineteenth century in the plots and artistic devices of health films aimed at persuading women to accept not only new practices of care but also being institutionalized throughout their lives by public health surveillance. Historically, the films produced in Prague and Zagreb address women in cities and rural areas, respectively. We explore the specifics of visualizing the mission of surveillance as determined by this difference.
Journal: Acta historiae medicinae, stomatologiae, pharmaciae, medicinae veterinariae
- Issue Year: 41/2022
- Issue No: 1-2
- Page Range: 57-76
- Page Count: 20
- Language: English, Serbian