Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French

Tracey Denean Sharpley-Whiting

Published by Duke University Press 1999

Black Venus

Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French

Tracey Denean Sharpley-Whiting

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822382799

Overview
Contents

About this book

Explores the treatment and image of the black female or "Black Venus" as seen in early 19th French literature.

Author / Editor information

T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting is Associate Professor of French, Film Studies, Comparative Literature, and African American Studies at Purdue University. She is the author of Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminisms and coeditor of Spoils of War: Women of Color, Cultures, and Revolutions and Fanon: A Critical Reader.

Reviews

“A cogently argued study of representations of black women in French literature. In locating the Black Venus and the ideologies surrounding and informing her representations at the center of literary and cultural narratives, this book makes significant interventions in nineteenth-century French studies and current race and gender studies.”—Thadious M. Davis, Vanderbilt University

“Intellectually rigorous, extremely well written, and solidly arguing against the dated French (and European) conceptualizations of black female sexuality. What a refreshing and much needed addition!”—Marjorie Attignol Salvodon, Connecticut College

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: Theorizing Black Venus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Writing Sex, Writing Difference: Creating the Master Text on the Hottentot Venus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	16
2. Representing Sarah-Same Difference or No Difference at All? La Venus hottentote, ou haine aux Franfaises Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
3. "The Other Woman": Reading a Body of Difference in Balzac's La Fille auxyeux d'or Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
4. Black Blood, White Masks, and Negresse Sexuality in de Pons's Ourika, l'Africaine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
5. Black Is the Difference: Identity, Colonialism, and Fetishism in La Belle Dorothee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
6. Desirous and Dangerous Imaginations: The Black Female Body and the Courtesan in Zola's Therese Raquin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
7. Can a White Man Love a Black Woman? Perversions of Love beyond the Pale in Maupassant's "Boitelle" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
8. Bamboulas, Bacchanals, and Dark Veils over White Memories in Loti's Le Roman d'un spahi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
9. Cinematic Venus in the Africanist Orient Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Appendix: The Hottentot Venus, or Hatred of Frenchwomen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 208
Illustrations
- Other: 5 photographs, 1 table

eBook

Published: May 19, 1999
ISBN: 9780822382799