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Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography
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About Sara Baartman And The Hottentot Venus: A Ghost
Product Description Displayed on European stages from 1810 to 1815 as the Hottentot Venus, Sara Baartman was one of the most famous women of her day, and also one of the least known. As the Hottentot Venus, she was seen by Westerners as alluring and primitive, a reflection of their fears and suppressed desires. But who was Sara Baartman? Who was the woman who became the Hottentot Venus? Based on research and interviews that span three continents, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus tells the entwined histories of an illusive life and a famous icon. In doing so, the book raises questions about the possibilities and limits of biography for understanding those who live between and among different cultures. In reconstructing Baartman's life, the book traverses the South African frontier and its genocidal violence, cosmopolitan Cape Town, the ending of the slave trade, the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, London and Parisian high society, and the rise of racial science. The authors discuss the ramifications of discovering that when Baartman went to London, she was older than originally assumed, and they explore the enduring impact of the Hottentot Venus on ideas about women, race, and sexuality. The book concludes with the politics involved in returning Baartman's remains to her home country, and connects Baartman's story to her descendants in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Africa. Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus offers the authoritative account of one woman's life and reinstates her to the full complexity of her history. Review "[T]he book is a significant contribution to the literature on Baartman which will become essential reading for anyone interested in her life, as a living woman or academic subject. The impressive archival work that has been used to recapture so much of Baartman's elusive life is illuminating; although necessarily speculative in parts, on the whole, the book's arguments have been grounded in a well-contextualised and evocative history of the Cape region, London and Paris. Given abiding interest in Baartman's life, the book's accessible style will recommend it to a wide audience, both within and outside the halls of academia." ---Sadiah Qureshi, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History "The authors…look beyond Baartman's life as a curiosity and an exhibit to explore her life as a woman. Crais and Scully place Baartman's contributions in such areas as the rights of the unlawfully detained, global feminism, and later--when her body was returned to South Africa from France--the politics of indigenous identity. Readers who enjoyed African Queen (2007), by Rachel Holmes, will appreciate this further examination of the life of an extraordinary woman." ---Vanessa Bush, Booklist "This is a thrilling, provocative and interesting exploration. The reader learns about how Baartman's life was transformed once she became the Hottentot Venus, and is given a vivid snapshot of what the sociopolitical and ideological climate of Europe was when Baartman reached its shores. Crais and Scully literally recover Baartman--the public spectacle and the 'scientific discovery'--as so much more. Not only is this book a fascinating read, it will also have done much to restore the historical record in Europe and the US. It is an important and necessary contribution to the existing discourse on Sara Baartman's impact on contemporary ideas of race, sexuality and the European conception of primitivity." ---Kaila Adia Story, Times Higher Education "Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully explore the curious juxtaposition of celebrity and degradation that followed Sara Baartman after she was brought to Europe and put on exhibit, an 'ethnopornograhic freak.' But Crais and Scully are interested in much more than the Hottentot Venus; their aim is to honor Baartman, and they do so with biography that is speculative as well as research-driven." ---Joe Taylor, Foreword Magazine "[Crais an
