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Infamous Bodies: Early Black Women’s Celebrity and the Afterlives of Rights

by Samantha Pinto

Duke University Press, 2020
Paper: 978-1-4780-0832-3 | eISBN: 978-1-4780-0928-3 | Cloth: 978-1-4780-0783-8
Library of Congress Classification HQ1163.P56 2020

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK
The countless retellings and reimaginings of the private and public lives of Phillis Wheatley, Sally Hemings, Sarah Baartman, Mary Seacole, and Sarah Forbes Bonetta have transformed them into difficult cultural and black feminist icons. In Infamous Bodies, Samantha Pinto explores how histories of these black women and their ongoing fame generate new ways of imagining black feminist futures. Drawing on a variety of media, cultural, legal, and critical sources, Pinto shows how the narratives surrounding these eighteenth- and nineteenth-century celebrities shape key political concepts such as freedom, consent, contract, citizenship, and sovereignty. Whether analyzing Wheatley's fame in relation to conceptions of race and freedom, notions of consent in Hemings's relationship with Thomas Jefferson, or Baartman's ability to enter into legal contracts, Pinto reveals the centrality of race, gender, and sexuality in the formation of political rights. In so doing, she contends that feminist theories of black women's vulnerable embodiment can be the starting point for future progressive political projects.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Samantha Pinto is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, author of Difficult Diasporas: The Transnational Feminist Aesthetic of the Black Atlantic, and coeditor of Writing beyond the State: Post-Sovereign Approaches to Human Rights in Literary Studies.

REVIEWS

“Infamous Bodies is required reading for scholars of black feminist theory. This ambitious, provocative book interrogates female celebrity as a crucial genre through which black women come into political view. Samantha Pinto's careful and thoughtful wrestling with black women celebrities who have become—or perhaps always were—‘difficult’ in and for black feminist studies requires that scholars probe the very meaning of the ‘political’ for black feminist thought. Black feminist theory will be both challenged and transformed by Pinto's careful and counterintuitive readings of black women's representation and by Pinto’s call for the necessary centrality of vulnerability to our scholarly and political work.”

-- Jennifer C. Nash, author of Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality

“With theoretical innovation and a commitment to bringing to light forgotten cultural moments, Samantha Pinto considers notorious figures of black female historical celebrity for what they can tell us about the limits of liberal humanist conceptions of freedom, agency, and consent. Fueled by a powerful sense of urgency, Pinto’s rich and valuable contribution pushes black studies and feminist and queer studies of representation and history to new places while prompting readers to think about how celebrity culture continues to treat black women with the broadest strokes.”

-- Francesca T. Royster, author of Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era

"[A] must-have counterintuitive, historical analysis. . . . The book is well written . . . and would be ideal for the following departments: sociology, women's studies, and African American studies. The book would pair well with the following courses: women authority and power, women's right and status; and feminism."

-- Shauntey James Ethnic and Racial Studies

This excellent text is a must read for those studying cultural and Black feminist representations to understand how those that proliferated in the past inform contemporary debates related to '[B]lack women’s sexual, embodied visibility as always politically suspect.'"

-- C. B. Regester Choice

"Pinto’s work is skilfully crafted. . . . With a theoretical focus of Black feminism, structured through a framework of human rights discourse, and with a call to reframe Black feminist thought and historiography, Pinto’s work offers scholars new possibilities for asking different questions of our material and the way in which we see, read and write about them."

-- Rebecca J. Fraser European Journal of American Culture

"Infamous Bodies feels acutely timely. Dense with citation and conceptual triangulation, Pinto’s is an up-to-date intervention rooted in the history of the field. There are many potential audiences for this text—within literary studies, media studies, sexuality studies, and political theory—but any feminist scholar keeping abreast of contemporary debates will find something of interest here."

-- Deborah Thurman Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

"Infamous Bodies is a generative contribution to the field of Black feminist theory, particularly for scholars interested in the early intersections of contracts, labor, and international human rights. This is also an insightful text for practitioners of art criticism and performance theory."

-- Margarita Lila Rosa The Black Scholar

"Pinto offers new radical political futures for black feminist studies. . . . She adds to existing critical human rights scholarship on vulnerability with a novel reconfiguration of what agency and freedom look like."

-- Marietta Kosma US Studies Online

"Pinto’s is an innovative study which expands upon the contemporary discourses central to black feminist scholarship and will likely become an essential read in its field."

-- Laura Skinner Journal of Gender Studies

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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