Sign-In
Cart
Impossible Purities: Blackness, Femininity, and Victorian Culture
Paperback
AnthropologyGeneral Gender StudiesGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 0822321203
ISBN13: 9780822321200
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: Nov 23 1998
Pages: 272
Weight: 1.02
Height: 0.81 Width: 6.15 Depth: 9.27
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780822321200
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: Nov 23 1998
Pages: 272
Weight: 1.02
Height: 0.81 Width: 6.15 Depth: 9.27
Language: English
Using black feminist theory and African American studies to read Victorian culture, Impossible Purities looks at the construction of Englishness as white, masculine, and pure and Americanness as black, feminine, and impure. Brody's readings of Victorian novels, plays, paintings, and science fiction reveal the impossibility of purity and the inevitability of hybridity in representations of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and race. She amasses a considerable amount of evidence to show that Victorian culture was bound inextricably to various forms and figures of blackness.
Opening with a reading of Daniel Defoe's A True-Born Englishman, which posits the mixed origins of English identity, Brody goes on to analyze mulattas typified by Rhoda Swartz in William Thackeray's Vanity Fair, whose mixed-race status reveals the unseemly origins of English imperial power. Examining Victorian stage productions from blackface minstrel shows to performances of The Octoroon and Uncle Tom's Cabin, she explains how such productions depended upon feminized, black figures in order to reproduce Englishmen as masculine white subjects. She also discusses H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau in the context of debates about the new woman, slavery, and fears of the monstrous degeneration of English gentleman. Impossible Purities concludes with a discussion of Bram Stoker's novella, The Lair of the White Worm, which brings together the book's concerns with changing racial representations on both sides of the Atlantic.
This book will be of interest to scholars in Victorian studies, literary theory, African American studies, and cultural criticism.
This book will be of interest to scholars in Victorian studies, literary theory, African American studies, and cultural criticism.
Also in
Anthropology
Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games
Flanagan, Mary
Jakobsson, Mikael
Hardcover
$52.50
The Language of the Face: Stories of Its Uniquely Expressive Features
Gonzalez-Crussi, Frank
Hardcover
$28.45
Mountain Farmers: Moral Economies of Land & Agricultural Development in Arusha & Meru
Spear, Thomas
Paperback
$53.58
Family, Fields, and Ancestors: Constancy and Change in China's Social and Economic History, 1550-1949
Eastman, Lloyd E.
Paperback
$169.49
China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power
Kristof, Nicholas D.
Wudunn, Sheryl
Paperback
From $8.99
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017
Khalidi, Rashid
Paperback
$17.99
Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us about the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans
Doucleff, Michaeleen
Paperback
$21.60
How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
Galer, Sophia Smith
Hardcover
$28.80
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt
Paperback
$17.06
This Book May Cause Side Effects: The Curious and Dangerous Power of the Nocebo Effect, Placebo's Evil Twin
Pilcher, Helen
Hardcover
$27.00
How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession
Blackwell Baines, Caitlin
Hardcover
$28.45
Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: Tight and Loose Cultures and the Secret Signals That Direct Our Lives
Gelfand, Michele
Paperback
$18.99
Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream
McGowan, David
Paperback
$23.70
Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive
Stein, Eliot
Hardcover
From $17.99
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes
Rutherford, Adam
Paperback
$18.95
Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology (Second Edition)
Aguilera, Kelsie
Paperback
$91.35
Unproven, Unlikely, and Firmly Believed: Why We Fall for History's Most Seductive Conspiracy Theories, and How We Rediscover Reality
Phillips, Tom
Elledge, Jonn
Paperback
$17.06
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
Lukianoff, Greg
Haidt, Jonathan
Paperback
From $10.99
Magic from the Hilltops and Hollers: Folk Witchery, Superstitions, and Healing Practices from Appalachia
Middleton, Leah
Paperback
$18.00
The Rules That Make Us: How Culture Shapes the Way We Act, Think, Believe, and Buy
Sweet, Oliver
Hardcover
$27.00
Mothering the Mother: African American Postpartum Traditions, Recipes and Healing
Monroe, Shafia
Paperback
$17.99
Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge a Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution
McKenna, Terence
Paperback
From $11.99
A Brief History of Japan: Samurai, Shogun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun
Clements, Jonathan
Paperback
$15.15
Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us about the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans
Doucleff, Michaeleen
Hardcover
$33.25
Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are
Boyle, Rebecca
Paperback
$20.90
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
McDougall, Christopher
Paperback
$18.05
Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being
Berman, Marc
Paperback
$17.10
The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-Of-The-Century America
Baron, David
Hardcover
$28.49
All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work
Campbell, Hayley
Paperback
$18.05
Everything All at Once: How to Think Like a Science Guy, Solve Any Problem, and Make a Better World
Nye, Bill
Paperback
From $9.99
Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being
Berman, Marc
Hardcover
$28.50
Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation
Mead, Margaret
Paperback
$17.09
Wilmington's Lie (Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize): The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
Zucchino, David
Paperback
$17.10
The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
Graeber, David
Paperback
$20.89
Japanese Stories for Language Learners: Bilingual Stories in Japanese and English (Online Audio Included)
Sato, Eriko
McNulty, Anne
Paperback
$17.09
Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of
Tedlock, Dennis
Paperback
$18.99
The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
Henrich, Joseph
Paperback
$23.75
The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose Through Nature, Ritual, and Community
Some, Malidoma Patrice
Paperback
From $10.99
True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradis
McKenna, Terence
Paperback
$17.09
The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-Of-The-Century America
Baron, David
Paperback
$17.99
Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults
Hassan, Steven
Paperback
$23.69
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why
Nisbett, Richard
Paperback
From $8.99
In Praise of Addiction: Or How We Can Learn to Love Dependency in a Damaged World
Roberts, Elizabeth F. S.
Hardcover
$28.45
Playing Well with Others: Your Field Guide to Discovering, Exploring and Navigating the Kink, Leather and Bdsm Communities
Harrington, Lee
Williams, Mollena
Paperback
$18.95
Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond
Lee, Martin A.
Shlain, Bruce
Paperback
$18.05
The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
Henrich, Joseph
Paperback
$19.90
Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping--Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond
Underhill, Paco
Paperback
From $10.99
Ra Y El Camino de la Unidad: Un Viaje Hacia La Unicidad, La Luz Y El Despertar de la Conciencia
Gonzalez, Dalia Margarita Aldana
Aldana, Margarita
Paperback
$28.56
Language and Life on Ocracoke: The Living History of the Brogue
Wolfram, Walt
Gaskill, Candy
Reaser, Jeffrey
Paperback
$23.75
NKJV Study Bible, Leathersoft, Brown, Comfort Print: The Complete Resource for Studying God's Word
Thomas Nelson
Hardcover
$66.49
Lost on Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation
Troost, J. Maarten
Paperback
$22.00
The Essential Questions: Interview Your Family to Uncover Stories and Bridge Generations
Keating, Elizabeth, PH. D.
Hardcover
$20.90
Finding Your Third Place: Building Happier Communities (and Making Great Friends Along the Way)
Kyte, Richard
Paperback
$16.10