Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France (Race in the Atlantic World, 1700–1900)

Even though there were relatively few people of color in postrevolutionary France, images of and discussions about black women in particular appeared repeatedly in a variety of French cultural sectors and social milieus. In Vénus Noire, Robin Mitchell shows how these literary and visual depictions of black women helped to shape the country’s postrevolutionary national identity, particularly in response to the trauma of the French defeat in the Haitian Revolution.Vénus Noire explores the ramifications of this defeat in examining visual and literary representations of three black women who achieved fame in the years that followed. Sarah Baartmann, popularly known as the Hottentot Venus, represented distorted memories of Haiti in the French imagination, and Mitchell shows how her display, treatment, and representation embodied residual anger harbored by the French. Ourika, a young Senegalese girl brought to live in France by the Maréchal Prince de Beauvau, inspired plays, poems, and clothing and jewelry fads, and Mitchell examines how the French appropriated black female identity through these representations while at the same time perpetuating stereotypes of the hypersexual black woman. Finally, Mitchell shows how demonization of Jeanne Duval, longtime lover of the poet Charles Baudelaire, expressed France’s need to rid itself of black bodies even as images and discourses about these bodies proliferated. The stories of these women, carefully contextualized by Mitchell and put into dialogue with one another, reveal a blind spot about race in French national identity that persists in the postcolonial present.

History

Mitchell, Robin

Europe

University of Georgia Press

Review\nBased on extensive research in primary sources, Vénus Noire is a groundbreaking study of how, despite their relatively few numbers in metropolitan France, black women were weighted with powerful symbolic valence. French writers, scientists, and artists all depicted black women as sexualized, mysterious, and uncontrollable "others," thus burdening actual black women with living their lives in tension with these stereotypes. Mitchell brings to life the biographies of three particularly well-documented black women, while deconstructing artistic and literary icons of many more, to show how French discourse produced race and gender from the Revolution and Napoleonic era through the Second Empire. Haunting, breathtaking, and riveting, this book will linger in your mind long after you close its pages. -- Sue Peabody ― author of Madeleine’s Children: Family, Freedom, Secrets, and Lies in France’s Indian Ocean Colonies\nMitchell’s research is rigorous and presented in a riveting way. Indeed, Vénus Noire is essential reading for any historian of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, as well as history enthusiasts. -- The Society for the History of Collecting\nVénus Noire, apart from breaking this reader’s heart, attests to the ongoing significance of the relational, intersectional approach in the study of European empire. -- Gloria Wekker ― New West Indian Guide\nBy demonstrating the points of intersection and parallel between these Black women’s stories, Mitchell illuminates the ongoing contentiousness that undergirded France’s relationship to Black subjectivity and Black sexuality in an era marked and striated by slavery and its abolition. -- H. Adlai Murdoch ― H-Net France Forum\nThe book is a triumph not only because it shows how narratives around black women’s bodies have evolved, but because Mitchell unashamedly makes the personal political. -- Kate Lister ― The Guardian\nIn this attractively written, handsomely illustrated volume, historian Robin Mitchell discusses the lives and representations of three Black women in nineteenth-century France in the context of the devastating loss of France’s most profitable colony at the time: Saint-Domingue.... In exemplary intersectional fashion, the study brings issues of race, gender, and sexuality to the fore, with regard to both the book’s three protagonists and the French metropolitan population. -- Gloria Wekker ― New West Indian Guide\nA much-needed tour de force. . . . Mitchell offers an insightful analysis of black women’s bodies as framing the discourse around national identity in post-revolutionary France. -- Ashwiny O. Kistnareddy ― Immigrants & Minorities: Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and Diaspora\nA timely and historically grounded Black feminist contribution to the study of race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial period....Essential reading for any scholar of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, Vénus Noire is an exciting contribution to the field of French studies. -- Sage Goellner ― Oxford University Press French Studies Journal\nEven though there were relatively few people of color in postrevolutionary France, images of and discussions about black women in particular appeared repeatedly in a variety of French cultural sectors and social milieus. In Vénus Noire, Robin Mitchell shows how these literary and visual depictions of black women helped to shape the country’s postrevolutionary national identity, particularly in response to the trauma of the French defeat in the Haitian Revolution.\nVénus Noire explores the ramifications of this defeat in examining visual and literary representations of three black women who achieved fame in the years that followed. Sarah Baartmann, popularly known as the Hottentot Venus, represented distorted memories of Haiti in the French imagination, and Mitchell shows how her display, treatment, and representation embodied residual anger harbored by the French. Ourika, a young Senegalese g

After years of sleeping peacefully, the deceased dignatries of Old Edinburgh are about to get a nasty surprise....... Grave-digger and funeral enthusiast Cameron Carter lives a relatively quiet life. Until a misplaced shovel cracks open a coffin lid and reveals a hidden fortune, that is. Nearly one hundred and seventy years after the trial of Scotland's notorious body snatchers, William Burke and William Hare, the ancient trade of grave robbing returns to the town's cemetries. Forming an unholy union with small time crook, Adam, Cameron is drawn into a web of crime that involves a bogus American Scholars' Society, chocolate chip ice cream and Steve McQueen.Their sacriligious scheming doesn't go quite to plan, however, and events begin to spiral dangerously beyond Cameron?s control. Will our hero pull the tour guide of his dreams? Will his partner in crime ever shift those microwaves? Is there an afterlife? In Robin Mitchell?s rude and darkly comic debut novel, all the answers will be exhumed.

Grave Robbers

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

Luath Press Ltd.

In this third book in Robin Mitchell and Judith Steedman's popular Windy series, Snowy and Chinook are planning a birthday party for their friend Tulip on a cold winter morning. The puppet figures who tell the story, designed by the authors and photographed by Mia Cunningham, have a fresh and modern style. Clear, primary colors, charming line drawings, and simple text make this a fun book for the very young.

Snowy and Chinook (Windy)

Children's Books

Steedman, Judith

Animals

Simply Read Books

This text provides a practical guide to occupational leases for commercial property. Following the chronology of a transaction, Cockburn discusses clauses which regularly occur in commercial leases, highlighting the points each side needs to insist upon in negotiations and providing optional revisals for those acting for tenants. In an area of law where careful drafting is essential, this concise and informative handbook offers a unique practical viewpoint, outlining potential pitfalls and providing solutions.

Commercial Leases

Cockburn, David

Business

Bloomsbury Professional

Rainy and his dog Foggy are out on their raft when suddenly a thick fog rolls in. Adrift in the mist, they greet friends and animals who appear through the fog till at last they find their way back to the shore for hot dogs and other warming treats. This simple, engaging story delights even the youngest readers and features an activity from the story, with easy-to-follow instructions, on the inside jacket cover. The book’s eye-catching design, with brilliant color photographs of adorably dressed dolls, captivates readers of all ages.

Foggy (Windy)

Action & Adventure

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mitchell, Robin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mitchell, Robin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mitchell, Robin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France (Race in the Atlantic World, 1700–1900)

Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France (Race in the Atlantic World, 1700–1900)

Grave Robbers

Snowy and Chinook (Windy)

Commercial Leases

Foggy (Windy)