Thomas O. Haakenson is Associate Professor in Critical Studies and Visual Studies at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and Oakland, USA. He is coeditor of the book series Visual Cultures and German Contexts and has been published widely, including in New German Critique, Cabinet, Rutgers Art Review, German Studies Review, and the anthologies Legacies of Modernism, Spectacle, Representations of German Identity, as well as Memorialization in Germany Since 1945. He has received awards and fellowships from the United States Fulbright Program, the Social Science Research Council, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, and the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies.
Grotesque Visions: The Science of Berlin Dada is a much-needed contribution to the history and theory of the grotesque. Calling attention to historically specific ideas about the human body in early twentieth-century Germany, Thomas O. Haakenson not only describes the genesis of the grotesque at this particular time and place, he demonstrates its critical potential to intervene in the era’s often misguided scientific activities. As science and anthropology increasingly implemented visual images to validate research and serve as legitimate evidence, the Dada grotesque—as Haakenson convincingly argues—pointedly questioned the importance of vision as constitutive of knowledge. * Maria Makela, Professor Emerita of Visual Studies, California College of the Arts, USA * Thomas Haakenson brings a rich blend of philosophy, literature, and the visual arts to bear on the ‘grotesque,’ an elusive but essential concept for understanding Berlin Dada art. This probing study engages often-overlooked philosophical critiques of empirical concepts of vision in the sciences to establish unexpected links between the Dada group and the advocacy of methods of ‘learning to see.’ In this context, Haakenson highlights the role of the imagination in the public scientific displays of specimens and photographs curated by anthropologist Rudolf Virchow and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. Weaving together ideas on perception and aesthetics ranging from Kant and Goethe through Benjamin to Crary and Adorno, Haakenson shows how the Dadaists’ contributions remain timely for contemporary aesthetic theory. * Timothy O. Benson, Curator, Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Los Angeles County Museum of Art *