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painted backlit scenes before an audience on a revolving platform. The changes of
lighting in front and behind the scenes gave the illusion of motion and of time
passing and heightened the realism of the scene. The success of Daguerre’s diorama
declined with its novelty, and it disappeared during the mid-nineteenth century.
Encyclopaedism: I use this term very broadly to refer to the omnivorous appetite for
knowledge of the Victorian bourgeoisie, in a period when it was still believed that
everything could be gathered, classified and systematically known. Yet this concept
has its origins in the work of the eighteenth-century French philosophers Diderot
and d’Alembert whose Encyclopédie was published between 1751 and 1772. The
French encyclopaedists saw their project as a collection of all existing knowledge
and as a stand against irrationalism and they believed that scientific, political and
social progress would result from their work.
Eugenics: The eugenics movement was founded by Sir Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin,
who adapted evolutionary theory and the selective breeding of animals to the pro-
ject of producing an ‘ideal’ society. Eugenics influenced the attempts by various
national governments in the first half of the twentieth century to control popu-
lations through laws relating to miscegenation and compulsory sterilization of
the ‘unfit’ (usually people with mental illnesses or with disabilities). Eugenics is
regarded as very tainted because of its link to such coercive practices, and especially
to the Nazi genocide. Nevertheless it shaped the science of genetics and its influence
can be seen in common medical practices such as foetal screening, though this
remains controversial.
Experience economy: The experience economy was described (and advocated) by busi-
ness writers B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore in a 1999 book. Using the
example of Walt Disney amongst others, they argued that businesses should create
memorable experiences for their customers, and the memory is itself the product. In
an experience economy, the value of goods and services are measured by the feel-
ings they provoke, and the ‘transformation’ of visitors through experience is con-
ceived of as added value. The experience economy implies the commodification of
sensations and memories, and requires the development of techniques to measure
transformation.
Fetishism: Initially an anthropological term associated with nineteenth-century religious
practices on the west coast of Africa. The fetish is a material object used in
religious ritual, attributed special powers or human qualities. European philosophers
saw African cultures as representing an early stage of social evolution. This gave
rise to the argument (put forward by Auguste Comte) that fetishism was a rudimen-
tary form of religion – the primitive precursor of modern spiritualism and the
belief in the soul. The term was later appropriated by Karl Marx (see commodity
fetishism) and Sigmund Freud. Between 1905 and 1927 Freud developed his concept
of fetishism to characterize the sexual desire for an object or body part. He theor-
ized that pathological fetishism in men, where sexual desire can only be aroused by
certain objects or materials, was a response to the castration anxiety provoked by
the discovery that women do not have penises. The fetish object becomes a phallic
substitute, and also a form of protection for the fetishist, who oscillates between
acknowledgement and denial of sexual difference.