Humanities Center Faculty Works in Progress:"Physiognomy Check?” Pseudoscience, Vernacular Biometrics, and Neo-Fascism

Looking at the social media phenomenon of the “physiognomy check,” this talk tracks how right-wing dissidents create what I have termed vernacular biometrics, a form of crowd-sourced social curation aimed at identifying marginalized social actors for ideological intent. To maintain social-moral boundaries in the digital space, far-right religious actors draw on historical pseudoscience logics of acceptability bound to political projects of authority, conceptions of whiteness, and European discourses of purity and criminality. Boundaries are crafted through physical, political, and theological particularities that preserve group continuity from social difference. I argue that this digital emphasis on physiognomy lays bares the historical constructions of race that are founded in eugenics-informed understandings of correct bodies. As I track the use of moralized vernacular biometrics discourse, I highlight its connection to the broader pseudoscience content found in far-right media worlds, including alternative health models, medical sovereignty, and mis/disinformation.