Representation and Black Womanhood: The Legacy of Sarah Baartman (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780230117792)

Sarah Baartman's iconic status as the "Hottentot Venus"-as "victimized" African woman, "Mother" of the new South Africa, and ancestral spirit to countless women of the African Diaspora-has led to countless essays, biographies, films, interviews, art installations, and research centers, comprising a virtual archive that seeks to find some meaning in her persona. Yet even those with the best intentions, fighting to give her agency, a voice, a personhood, continue to reinforce the outmoded European narrative of her life without asking "What if we looked at Baartman through another lens?" This collection, the first of its kind, offers a space in which international scholars, cultural activists, and visual artists examine the legacy of Baartman's life anew. It disrupts iconic, pop-culture narratives to seek an alternative Africanist rendering of a person whose life has left a profound impact on the ways in which Black women are displayed and represented the world over.

Author: N. Gordon-Chipembere
ISBN-10: 0230117791
ISBN-13: 9780230117792
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Language: English
Published: 08/03/2011
Pages: 207
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.70w x 0.70d