Black Venus 2010

Deborah Willis is a University Professor and chair of the Photography and Imaging Department in the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She has an affiliated appointment with the College of Arts and Sciences.  Willis is a Guggenheim, Fletcher, and MacArthur Fellow, as well as a recipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation award. Willis is a photographer and curator of African American culture.  Her publications include Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs, The Black Female Body A Photographic History with Carla Williams (Temple); and Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present.

"Willis (Posing Beauty) offers a comprehensive, inclusive, and coherently organized anthology that embraces 'scholarly and lyrical, historical and reflexive' responses to Baartman, as a woman, as a black woman, as an object, as an icon, as an inspiration to creative artists, and as a catalyst to scholars. The book moves from Baartman's life and times to an assessment of the figure of the "Hottentot Venus" in contemporary art and a broader consideration of the historic public display of black women. Appended is a photo gallery that is as essential and diverse as the texts. This remarkable volume satisfies the academic reader with scholarly essays and moves the general reader with its creative expression, making it fascinating and accessible to any one." -Publishers Weekly

• Acknowledgments Prologue: The Venus Hottentot (1825) Elizabeth Alexander Introduction: The Notion of Venus Deborah WillisPART I: Sarah Baartman in Context 1. The Hottentot and the Prostitute: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality Sander Gilman 2. Another Means of Understanding the Gaze: Sarah Bartmann in the Development of Nineteenth-Century French National Identity Robin Mitchell 3. Which Bodies Matter? Feminism, Post-Structuralism, Race, and the Curious Theoretical Odyssey of the “Hottentot Venus” Zine Magubane 4. Exhibit A: Private Life without a Narrative J. Yolande Daniels 5. crucifix Holly BassPART II: Sarah Baartman’s Legacy in Art and Art History 6. Historic Retrievals: Confronting Visual Evidence and the Imaging of Truth Lisa Gail Collins 7. Reclaiming Venus: The Presence of Sarah Bartmann in Contemporary Art Debra S. Singer 8. Playing with Venus: Black Women Artists and the Venus Trope in Contemporary Visual Art Kianga K. Ford 9. Talk of the Town Manthia Diawara 10. The “Hottentot Venus” in Canada: Modernism, Censorship, and the Racial Limits of Female Sexuality Charmaine Nelson 11. A.K.A. Saartjie: The “Hottentot Venus” in Context (Some Recollections and a Dialogue), 1998/2004 Kellie Jones 12. little sarah Linda Susan JacksonPART III: Sarah Baartman and Black Women as Public Spectacle 13. The Greatest Show on Earth: For Saartjie Baartman, Joice Heth, Anarcha of Alabama, Truuginini, and Us All Nikky Finney 14. The Imperial Gaze: Venus Hottentot, Human Display, and World’s Fairs Michele Wallace 15. Cinderella Tours Europe Cheryl Finley 16. Mirror Sisters: Aunt Jemima as the Antonym/Extension of Saartjie Bartmann Michael D. Harris 17. My Wife as Venus E. Ethelbert MillerPART IV: Iconic Women in the Twentieth Century/b> 18. agape Holly Bass 19. Black/Female/Bodies Carnivalized in Spectacle and Space Carole Boyce Davies 20. Sighting the “Real” Josephine Baker: Methods and Issues of Black Star Studies Terri Francis 21. The Hoodrat Theory William Jelani CobbEpilogue: I’ve Come to Take You Home (Tribute to Sarah Bartmann Written in Holland, June 1998) Bibliography Contributors Index