Venus in the Dark

Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture
3. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-62413-6
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 220 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 345 g

In this third edition of the classic cultural history of black women’s beauty, Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture, Janell Hobson explores the enduring figure of the “Hottentot Venus” and the history of critical and artistic responses to her by black women in contemporary photography, film, literature, music, and dance.

In 1810, Sara Baartman was taken from South Africa to Europe, where she was put on display at circuses, salons, museums, and universities as the “Hottentot Venus.” The subsequent legacy of representations of black women’s sexuality—from Josephine Baker to Serena Williams to hip-hop and dancehall videos, to our favorite pop acts including Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Megan Thee Stallion—refer back to her iconic image. Via a new Preface, Hobson explores the continuing influence of Baartman’s legacy through the contemporary marketization of black women’s bodies; from popular music and pornography to advertising and presidential campaigns. A brand-new chapter analyzes fetishistic spectacles of the black “booty,” with particular emphasis on the rise in cosmetic surgeries, such as BBLs, and the different ways that twenty-first-century subjects have reshaped and redefined their bodies in an emergent global body politic.

This new edition of Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture is essential reading for students and researchers, as well those outside of academia interested in the subjects of black women and their beautification efforts.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Undergraduate Advanced, and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hobson, Janell

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Mediensoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Feminismus, Feministische Theorie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface to the Third Edition Acknowledgments 1. Re-Presenting The Black Female Body: An Introduction 2. Venus and the Hottentot: The Emergence of an Icon 3. The Hottentot Venus Revisited: The Politics of Reclamation 4. The "Batty" Politic: Toward an Aesthetic of the Black Female Body 5. Mirror, Mirror: Framing the Black Female Body for Still and Motion Pictures 6. Remnants of Venus: Evolutions of the Bootylicious Body 7. Shapeshifting: Re-Forming the Body (Geo)Politic Epilogue

Über Autor(innen)

Janell Hobson is Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York, USA. She is a contributing writer and editor of Ms. Magazine, and author of other books such as When God Lost Her Tongue: Historical Consciousness and the Black Feminist Imagination (Routledge, 2021). Hobson specializes in research on black women’s histories and popular representations.